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  Alex glanced at her watch. “Okay, I’ll see you at two.” She snapped the phone closed.

  “Autopsy. Sounds like fun.”

  “Damn your ears.”

  He smirked. “Listen, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here.”

  “No shit.”

  “We’re going to have to find some way to work together.” He heard Alex’s stomach grumble loudly. “Why don’t we go grab a bite to eat? My treat.”

  She shook her head. “I have things to do.”

  “Damn it. Does everything have to be an argument with you?”

  She pulled her keys from her pocket. “No, not everything. The Bureau sent you to check on the progress of the investigation. I told you it’s under control and I don’t need your help. No argument there.” Turning on her heel, she walked away. “Good-bye, Enforcer Baudelaire.”

  Varik watched her climb into her Jeep and then slam it into reverse. She zipped past him, and tires squealed and horns blared as she darted into traffic, nearly causing a three-car pileup. Picking up his jacket, he watched her speed away from the bar. “Good going, Varik,” he said to himself. “Next time, try not pissing her off for a change.”

  four

  “NEED A RIDE?” HE SHOUTED THE QUESTION THROUGH the passenger-side window.

  The vamp that’d been walking along the side of the road stopped and approached the open window. “Yeah,” it said. “My car broke down a ways back.” It nodded toward the deserted country road. “My house is another couple of miles up. You mind taking me there? I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Hop on in.”

  The vamp climbed into the truck’s cabin. “Thanks. I appreciate this. My boss is going to kill me for being late.”

  He checked the rear mirrors and pulled onto the asphalt road once more. He glanced at the speedometer and the picture of Claire tucked in beside it. Her dark eyes glittered up at him, alight with anticipation for what was to come. “Where do you work?”

  “Here and there. Mostly construction.”

  He nodded, listening to the thrum of the tires over the asphalt and wind whistling through the partially opened window. The two combined into a hypnotic pulse that relaxed him. He could feel himself slipping into that familiar peaceful state, the calm of the hunter’s mind before he unleashed his fury and pounced.

  A rock in one of the tires clicked rapidly against the pavement and created a steady musical score for the fantasy playing in his mind. Kill it. Kill it. Kill it.

  “My place is the next drive on the left,” the vamp said, pointing to a partially obscured gravel entrance.

  Rocks crunched under the tires and pinged against the truck’s bottom. Large red oaks and pines surrounded the small brick house and nearby wooden storage shed. He pulled the truck through the circular drive and stopped in front of the house.

  “Thanks again,” the vamp said, opening the truck door. “Sure I can’t pay you something?”

  “No, the Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.”

  “Uh, right. Well, like I said, thanks for the ride.”

  He nodded.

  The vamp closed the door and crossed the drive in front of the truck, heading for the house.

  He glanced at Claire’s photo. Shadows covered her face, but her eyes bore into him. He reached below the seat, pulled out the hidden nine-millimeter Sig Sauer P250, and killed the truck’s engine. The vamp was already inside the house, in its lair, but that made no difference. He knew he could take it down the same way he had the others.

  Alternating sunlight and shadows danced before him as he quietly walked up to the front door. He thumbed off the gun’s safety mechanism and peered into the home. No sign of the vamp in the furniture-devoid first room. The metal storm door squeaked faintly as he opened it and moved inside.

  A door to the right opened to a kitchen, and another to his left led into a narrow hallway. He paused by the front entrance, allowing his eyes time to adjust and the storm door to close. The scuffling of feet in the hallway gave away the vamp’s location.

  It entered the front room and jerked to a halt, staring at him. “What the fuck—”

  He’d practiced a quick-draw kill, and now he raised the Sig Sauer and fired. The bullet streaked from the gun’s barrel and exploded into the vamp’s heart.

  The vamp stumbled back into the hall, staring at the scarlet stain spreading over its chest. It slid to the floor and left a wide red stain on the white plaster wall.

  The joy that overcame him was rivaled only by the joy he’d felt the day he and Claire had married. He stalked toward the vamp, keeping the gun trained on its motionless body. He tapped its foot with his toe and received no reaction. Everyone knew vamps were devious creatures, demons with golden tongues and a host of mind-bending powers. He had to be certain it was dead before he moved the body.

  The report of the gun echoed like an explosion within the confines of the small hallway. Blood and fragments of bone and brain sprayed the wall behind the body. It fell over onto its side, a gaping hole in its head to match the one in its chest. Satisfied, he inhaled a cleansing breath and gagged from the stench of gunpowder and blood permeating the still air.

  To escape the smell, he entered the kitchen and breathed an inaudible curse as a new odor assaulted his senses. Boxes of empty vials crowded the counters. Large clusters of garlic bulbs hung from the ceiling, filling the air with their pungent aroma. Huge bottles of aspirin were scattered over a table along with bags of other brightly colored pills. Guessing what he’d find, he opened the refrigerator and his stomach turned when he saw the rows of jars filled with blood.

  Everything needed to make Midnight, the drug responsible for taking away his beloved Claire, was present.

  Anger overtook him. He slammed the fridge closed and fired several rounds into the door. Sparks popped from the dying motor and dark red liquid oozed from the broken bottom seal. Roaring in a primal fury, he overturned the table, smashed the various pills to powder beneath his heels. He ripped the garlic from the hooks from which it hung and hurled it through the kitchen window.

  A breeze entered the kitchen, cleansing it of the overpowering smell of garlic and blood, and carried away his anger.

  Sickened by the mess before him, he returned to the empty first room, where the air was marginally cleaner.

  A vision of Claire smiling at him glided into the room through the front door. “Claire …” He smiled and reached for her.

  The vision faded, and he found himself staring into emptiness, left behind once again, but he and Claire would be reunited soon. Once his tasks were finished and justice had been served, he would join Claire, and nothing, not even death, would tear them apart.

  Alex dodged an outbound eighteen-wheeler and swerved around a stationary minivan to pull into an open space in front of Maggie’s Place. Her encounter with Varik had left her in a foul mood and in desperate need of coffee and food. The truck-stop diner wasn’t the best place for either, but it was the closest to Crimson Swan.

  She sat for a moment behind the wheel of her Grand Cherokee trying to compose herself. Her temples throbbed with every heartbeat. She ripped her sunglasses off and tossed them on the seat beside her. “Damn it,” she mumbled, grinding her fingers into her closed eyes. “Damn him.”

  Varik had always been able to push her buttons, but she’d thought that she’d left him in the past, where he could no longer hurt her. Time hadn’t completely erased her feelings. She’d suppressed them, denied their existence, but seeing him had brought on a rush of memories.

  One now drifted up from her subconscious, a brief image of Varik. His eyes were the color of molten gold. Blood covered the front of his shirt and hands.

  “Get a grip, Alex,” she whispered, fingering her scar. She couldn’t afford to show weakness with Varik in town. His assurances that he was there to help meant nothing. Damian had reinstated him. She knew how the Bureau worked. By sending her former me
ntor to aid her without warning, they showed a lack of confidence in her abilities.

  A new surge of determination to see the case through to the end filled her. “Fuck ’em,” she said to her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her normally pale cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bloodshot, but at least they’d returned to a normal color. Her hair didn’t look too bad, a little mussed from the wind but presentable. Varik’s sudden appearance may have unnerved her, but that didn’t mean she had to let it show.

  Her stomach growled in protest of her delay. With a heavy sigh, she opened the Jeep’s door.

  Interstate traffic whizzed by on the nearby overpass. Big rigs and family vehicles were a constant stream through the combination diner and gas station. Parents yelled at their children to avoid the moving cars. Men gathered around the tailgates of their pickups, watched the commotion with feigned disinterest, and commented on the weather. The steady rumble of idling eighteen-wheelers mingled with the noise of interstate traffic and vibrated the ground beneath Alex’s feet.

  A car horn blared in the distance. She looked to the interstate in time to see a sedan accelerating around a red pickup that had pulled to the shoulder on-ramp. Even small towns had bad drivers. She shook her head and entered the diner.

  The mismatched tables and chairs and tattered Naugahyde booths of Maggie’s Place were a dramatic contrast to the unblemished environment of Crimson Swan. Backless stools bolted to the floor in front of a chipped Formica counter and facing the open grill showed the same amount of wear as the booths. The dingy and cracked laminate flooring had pulled away from the concrete slab beneath some of the tables. A clock and two unframed and faded posters of Elvis Presley and Hank Williams Jr. added little cheer to the poorly painted green walls.

  Slow country music played from an antique jukebox tucked into the corner beside the restrooms. The smell of burning bread, rancid grease, and stale cigarettes filled the air and seemed to cling to Alex as she wound her way around the tables.

  Sheriff Harvey Manser and a few other men occupying several of the counter stools glanced over their shoulders at her. Two frowned and said muted words to their companions before rising and leaving the diner.

  Alex ignored the dark looks they directed at her when they passed and the whispers from the family of six seated at the largest booth. She knew she was encroaching on a predominantly human restaurant, but her hunger dictated her actions for the moment. Their discomfort at having a vampire in their midst would be short-lived. She didn’t intend to stay.

  A short man with salt-and-pepper hair looked up at her from his position in front of the grill when she sat down at the counter, scowled, then turned back to his work.

  She plucked a laminated menu from between a sugar container and a napkin holder. Scanning the limited offerings, she made her choices and checked her watch. The autopsy was scheduled to begin in about an hour, so she had plenty of time to eat. Her leg bounced anxiously as she watched the traffic through the grease-fogged windows. Half of her hoped to see Varik’s Corvette pulling into the parking lot, but she knew him too well. He wouldn’t follow her. He’d wait and ambush her at the autopsy. Glancing at her watch again, she wondered if she could convince the coroner’s office to bump up the time.

  “What’re you having?”

  Alex started at the sound of the waitress’s voice. She hadn’t heard the woman approach and stared at her.

  The woman cocked her hip and scratched at the stiff beehive hairdo piled on top of her head. “You deaf?”

  “Large coffee and a bacon-and-egg sandwich, extra mayo. To go. Please.”

  The waitress turned away, shaking her head, and Alex pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She’d call Jeff and have him try to convince Doc Hancock to move up the autopsy. She was halfway through dialing the number when a voice beside her brought her up short.

  “Didn’t think you vamps needed to eat,” Harvey said, smoke pouring from both his mouth and the cigarette he cradled between two fingers. “Thought you all got by on just blood.”

  Closing the cell phone, Alex half turned to face him. Harsh fluorescent light made his skin appear sallow. The wisps of hair he normally combed from left to right in an effort to minimize his spreading baldness stood on end, as if someone had soaked them with hair spray during a windstorm. Gray eyes stared at her through the smoky haze with undisguised hatred. Alex glanced over his shoulder at the men who had taken a sudden interest in their conversation. She smiled, showing her small fangs. “Just popped in for a quick bite.”

  The men turned away, and Harvey frowned. “If you’re planning to eat anyone here—”

  “No, that would be rude.”

  “Kind of like leaving your pet detective to deal with the new crop of bloodsuckers that wheeled into town this morning.”

  “First of all, Tasha isn’t my pet. Secondly, I didn’t leave her to deal with anyone. Except maybe you.”

  “I’d watch that attitude if I were you. Folks with bad attitudes in this town have a way of getting burned.”

  “Burned, huh?” She cocked her head. “Confessing to that apartment fire, Harvey?”

  All conversation in the diner stopped, only the slow melody of a country-music ballad disturbing the silence.

  Harvey ground the remains of his cigarette into an already overflowing ashtray and stood up. His hand rested on the butt of his service revolver as he leaned over Alex. “You accusing me of something, vamp?”

  She met his angry glare without flinching. “What’s the matter, Sheriff? Feeling the prick of a guilty conscience?”

  “The only thing I feel guilt over is playing nice with the likes of your kind because some governmental bureaucrats forty years ago didn’t have the ability to understand the consequences of setting monsters loose on our streets.”

  “You think the world would be better if humans had never known of us—”

  “Damn right.”

  “—and that humans and vampires shouldn’t live together?”

  “The good Lord may make the lion and lamb lay down together one day, but the lion is still a killer.”

  “Who are you to say the lamb isn’t?”

  A greasy paper bag dropped to the counter in front of Alex, cutting off Harvey’s reply. “Five fifty,” the waitress said, setting a large paper cup beside the bag. “To go.”

  Alex stood and began searching her pockets. She laid out a five and three ones on the counter. “Keep the change.”

  The woman snatched the money and flicked her eyes to Harvey. “Can I get you anything, Sheriff?”

  “Coffee,” he said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his uniform’s pocket. He tapped the filtered end of one on the counter’s edge. “Guess if you ever manage to track down the killer, then we’ll see who has more blood on their hands—the lamb or the lion.”

  Alex shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter. Either way, someone is going to answer for these deaths.”

  “Since we’re on the subject, any luck finding those heads?”

  “Yeah, I’m taking out lost-and-found ads in all the newspapers within a three-county radius. ‘Missing heads. Reward for their return. No questions asked.’” She picked up the grease-stained bag and coffee cup. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an autopsy to attend.”

  She left the diner, balancing the bag and coffee in one hand while fishing for her keys in her pocket with the other.

  As she rounded the side of her Jeep, she heard the gunshot an instant before she felt the burning pain.

  Emily Sabian compared the price of two brands of tomato sauce and picked up three cans of the on-sale brand. Moving down the grocery store’s aisles, she picked up other canned vegetables, fruit, and a box of pasta. She checked her list and tallied the prices she’d marked next to each item. She’d picked up almost everything and was well within her budget.

  At the deli, she added a boxed pecan pie to her cart. A little treat now and again never hurt anyone, and pecan pie was her weakness. If it weren’t for
her naturally high vampire metabolism, her waist would’ve thickened to the point of no return by now. However, she tried to take care of herself and secretly prided herself on maintaining a curvy size-twelve figure. She didn’t even mind the fact that silver shot through her once-golden curls. Her blue eyes still sparkled, and she was happy, despite losing Bernard. His death had been difficult, but her children had kept her going.

  She sighed as she stopped in front of the Vlad’s Tears display. The synthetic blood tasted horrible, and she rarely used it. Louisville had become known as the Vampire Capital of America in the years after Bernard’s death, and donors were never in short supply. Regardless of her personal preferences, she liked to keep a supply on hand for guests.

  “Emily!” a woman called from behind her.

  Suppressing a groan, she smiled at the rotund woman wheeling toward her. “Hello, Pearlie. How are you?”

  Pearlie Marker stopped her motorized shopping-cart scooter next to Emily’s cart. “Oh, all right, considering my knee’s been bothering me a good bit lately.” She rubbed her right knee with a pudgy hand and used the other to smooth the close-cropped white hair on her head, pressing it down so it conformed to the contours of her rounded face. “There must be a cold front moving in.”

  Pearlie had lived a few doors down from the Sabians for years and had known them before she knew they were vampires. In the days after Bernard’s murder, Pearlie had been one of the few humans who’d stuck by the family and accepted them regardless of their bloodsucking nature. At the time, Emily had thought Pearlie a godsend, but she’d quickly learned that the woman loved to gossip, and her ardent support was often motivated by a desire to be in the center of the latest neighborhood scandal.

  Emily nodded in sympathy and grabbed two twelve-pack containers of Vlad’s Tears. “I hate to hear that you’re having troubles, Pearlie.”

  She waved away the comment. “Just the price we humans pay for getting old.”

  Emily laughed nervously as she dropped the synthetic blood into her cart.