He had once again been on the verge of losing his control with Shelby Cort. He thought that the increased exposure to her would accustom him to handling his baser instincts, but it didn't seem to work that way. If anything, she aroused him more and more each time they met. It was old fashioned physical arousal, but it was also the bloodlust. He wondered which was more agonizing in its denial.
But this last meeting had been necessary. He'd needed to know what she had wanted with Judson Tuxbridge, and if she considered him a suspect in either the killing of Kyle Carver or the attack on Lucius Moravich. Tux appeared to be safe. She had no evidence to pursue him further. Ric had seen no need to compel her again. Besides, it seemed that the times he had compelled her in the past had only created more problems than they solved.
Be truthful with yourself. The thought came from what passed for vampire conscience-the tiny voice that reminded the Undead that, while it was standard procedure to lie to and deceive both humans and other vampires, survival depended on being truthful to oneself. If he were to tell the truth, he would admit he saw Shelby because he wanted her. Every other reason was just an excuse.
The memory of her pressed tightly against him on the bike and of her coiled in his lap like a contented cat stirred him all over again.
And when he remembered the sight of her ruby pendant clinging to the base of her neck like a drop of blood, uncontrollable hunger seized him. He needed to feed. It had been too many days since he had had fresh blood.
It was still early. He had time to go out in search of a source before Eva or Ormie arrived for their one-on-one meetings. With urgency now, Ric ran inside to put his shirt back on. When he pulled the front door open to leave again, a stranger stood before him.
Driven by his hunger, Ric would have thought the arrival of a stranger on his doorstep to be pure providence. Except for one thing. It wasn't alive.
Chapter Seven.
"I hear you've been looking for me," stated the stranger.
The creature was almost as tall as Ric, and his jeans and sleeveless shirt displayed the kind of exaggerated muscular physique found in only a gym or a prison. But Ric didn't concern himself with either the man's height or bulk. He did take note, though, of black hair as shiny as a raven's wing, cobalt blue eyes that glowed with an inhuman fire, and pale skin that gleamed like frosted glass. These were the telltale signs of vampiric age and strength, and meant more than all the muscles of the vamp's formidable body.
Ric knew three things immediately-that this being was at least two hundred years old, that by Tux's description he was the elusive Joel Branduff, and that Ric, in his present state of hunger, was at a distinct disadvantage. Branduff couldn't have appeared at a worse time. Ric's self-control, command over his vampiric attributes, and cool dispassion were all like disobedient children- unresponsive and running wild. Even so, he was of no mind to make things easy for this creature.
He resisted the impulse to show his teeth to the stranger. Fang-baring was as much a juvenile display among the Undead as mooning and flashing was among humans. "Looking for you? Don't play games with me. I don't even know you."
"Don't you? Come, now. Who's playing the games?"
The unruly child named Patience was joining his brothers in waywardness. "Who are you, and what do you want?" Ric's question was almost a growl, relaying more by its tone than in the words. Challenge. Warning. Ric hoped the stranger would heed the message. A life-and-death struggle with another vamp during the first week on the job was not something that looked good on an Overlord's performance evaluation.
"I'm Branduff, as I'm sure you've guessed. A little bat whispered in my ear that you've been searching for me, even going so far as to invade my old haunt on Dead Creek Drive. I know who you are-the famous ex-Paramount Doctor Death. Well, you don't look like much to me, and I know you no longer have fiends in high places, as they say. I also don't fancy you hunting me down like some damn enforcer when I haven't broken any of our laws."
Ric smiled, a cold sneer that stopped just short of a full-blown snarl. The bloodlust was racing through his veins, and he could feel the heat and abandon building in his body by the moment. "If you hadn't decided to play the role of maverick bad-boy, I wouldn't have had to go looking for you."
"The decision to avoid your silly little council meetings is a personal choice, not a crime."
"I didn't say it was a crime. But when I need to talk to all the Undead in the county and you decide instead to play hide-and-seek, you bring the consequences down on your own head. So don't blame me for your displeasure in being hunted."
Branduff spread his arms wide. "Well, I'm here now, Your Grace. What do you want with me?"
Normally Ric wouldn't respond in kind to such insolence, but his beast, urged on by the bloodlust, wasn't about to allow such disrespect to go unpunished.
"Tell me, Mr. Branduff, are you a hotspur by nature, or just stupid?" Before the creature could answer, Ric grabbed him by the neck and hauled him off his feet. Branduff's neck was thick, but Ric's fingers were like talons, digging deep into muscle. "If you know Doctor Death, my friend, you know what I can do. This hand can heal, but it kills just as easily, and if you have any doubts about the power of the Hand of Death, I'll be only too glad to give you a demonstration."
Though held fast, the man didn't squirm, and he made no sound of surrender. His words were strained, but clear enough as he said, "Yes, I know what you can do, De Chaux, and you don't scare me. I came here of my own free will. Unhand me, and I'll tell you what you want to know."
Ric threw the man's body across the yard. Branduff hit the ground hard, but rolled to his feet.
Just as quickly, Ric flew to the edge of the yard and pulled a small sumac out of the ground by its roots. A demonstration of the Hand of Death was in order. He held the shrub as he spoke, turning it so that it held Branduff's attention. "A body was unearthed earlier this week in the old privy hole of a house on Salt Lick Road. The body was drained of blood. I don't give a damn about the human. What I do care about is protecting our kind against evidence the human law enforcers might find that would put us all at risk. And I care about ensuring that this doesn't happen again." By the time Ric finished speaking, all the leaves on the sumac had darkened and withered, and the flower clusters were as hard and brown as pine cones. He dropped the dead plant to the ground and crushed it under his boot. "Did you do this thing?"
Branduff stared at the dead tree and then spit on the ground. "Your little side show is meaningless. You can't kill me like that. Even if you could, it's forbidden."
That was true enough. It was forbidden for the Undead to prey on each other with deadly force. Beings of such power, with no morality or conscience, needed something to balance the scale in order to prevent the mass destruction of vampirekind. That balance started with members of the hierarchy like himself-Paramounts and Overlords-and extended to the network of enforcers throughout the world. If an Overlord were to engage in a deadly battle, a high-ranking enforcer would be sent to investigate. Perhaps even the Directorate would get involved. It was not a pleasant thought.
True, Branduff was a rogue. Perhaps Ric could kill him and get away with it, but such thinking was pure arrogance. How many humans committed murder thinking the same thing, only to find themselves in prison down the road? Perhaps Branduff traveled with a rogue pack. No, killing was too risky. Still, it didn't hurt to bluff.
"Oh, I think I could send you to the True Death easily enough, but it would be much more satisfying to just render you insensible- to turn you into the vampire equivalent of a vegetable. I ask you again-did you do it, Mr. Branduff?"
"I did, and it was as poor a feast as I've ever had. He was small and scrawny, and his blood was poisoned by enough drugs to fill a pharmacy."
"Why did you kill him? You're no child to be dropping your food and making a mess."
Branduff shrugged. "I had nothing to do with it. The human was stoned. He fell and hit his head. But I wasn't about to let a fresh body go to waste, so I took advantage of the free meal. All I did was feed from him and put him in the hole."
"How did you know about the hole?"
A nod to the woods. "I did construction here last year. I know a lot of yards quite intimately."
Ric sighed as his blood slowly cooled. Everything Branduff was saying did seem to fit with what Ric knew. The victim had received a blunt trauma force to the head, and Tuxbridge had mentioned that Branduff had helped him do construction work in the area.
"No sanctions this time, but one-stay out of my county and do your dining elsewhere. If there's anymore trouble in Shadow Bay or Snoshoe Harbor, I'll come looking for you. That's a promise from le docteur la mort. Now get out of here."
Branduff smiled, showing lots of teeth. "Glad to. This place stinks of chickens."
Ric's simmering blood flared at the slur, and he wanted nothing more than to truly wring Branduff's neck, just like killing a chicken, but his control somehow pieced itself together enough to stay his hand. He waited, the weapon in question fisted at his right side, and watched Joel Branduff glide down the driveway to the road. Ric stood his ground long enough to make sure the man drove off, then retreated inside. He grabbed his phone and called Tux.
"Tuxbridge." "It's Ric. Joel Branduff was just here. He found out I'd been looking for him, and he confessed to burying Kyle Carver. Apparently Branduff didn't like the idea of my tracking him."
There was a slight hesitation. "He confessed? Good. What else did he say?"
"He said that he didn't kill the human, but that the man fell and hit his head. Branduff claims he merely took advantage of the situation to feed, then hid the body in the privy hole he knew about from his stint as a construction worker last year."
"Do you believe him?"
"I have no reason not to. It won't do anything to put a halt to the sheriff's investigation, but with no new evidence or leads, the investigation should die a natural death. Tux, do me a favor. Cancel my interviews with Eva Hazard and Ormie Kessler for tonight.
And I don't want any meetings tomorrow night, either."
"All right, if you're sure about this."
Ric was in no mood to have his orders questioned. "Just do it, Tux."
"Done." Tux's reply was curt.
Ric hung up and let loose with a string of profanities in French so long it could reach from the Chicken Palace to downtown Shadow Bay and back again. He often reverted to his native language under stress, but all the zuts and merdes in the world couldn't ease the frustration he had felt since arriving home after dropping Shelby off. The confrontation with Branduff had been a disaster, there had been something in Tux's voice that Ric hadn't liked, and he didn't know what he was going to do about Shelby.
And hunger still gnawed at him with sharp teeth, shredding every competing thought so that only one was left. He needed to feed.
An hour later he returned home from his foraging expedition. Shirtless again, he ascended to the tower, but instead of cloistering himself in the tiny tower room, he climbed all the way up to the widow's walk. It was a small perch, but the expanse of the outdoors and the height of his roost gave him a sense of freedom and sovereignty that, however temporary, was a welcome feeling.
He had fed. He wasn't satisfied, but at least he had been able to take the edge off his craving. Unlike the younger members of the Cristallia County Council, who needed human blood and frequent feedings, Ric was able to sustain himself largely on animal blood.
Even for him, though, there was nothing as totally gratifying and enjoyable as human blood. It wasn't so much the fluid itself as a nourishing elixir, but the experience. It was the stealing of the animating force, the life essence, the energy and passion of a being with a heart and a spirit. It was the one thing that mortals possessed that the Undead, with all their power, immunity, and immortality lacked-the elan vital, the divine spark. And no animal could provide that particular spark. Only the human spark lit a soul, and it was the taking of the soul-spark that was so sweet.
Ric, in his decades of seeking escape from the pain of his human memories, had very effectively catacombed himself among the dead and Undead. But the one thing he had never been able to run away from was the acknowledgment that he needed the one thing he feared-human contact and human blood. Even now he didn't like to admit it, but he was no different from Joel Branduff, Eva Hazard, or Ormie Kessler. He needed and craved the lifeblood of humans. He had managed to deny himself again tonight, limiting his feeding to animal blood, but his self-congratulation was hollow. The day was coming, and coming swiftly, when he would need to feed long and deep, like his brethren, from a human.
Images of Shelby's garnet-colored hair, glittering in the sun with red highlights, pulsed through his mind, teasing and tormenting him.
Red sparks. The red spark of life.
He pushed the image away, but it was immediately replaced by the vision of a teardrop ruby against flawless skin. The facets of the ruby winked at him over and over, like a red strobe light, until all he saw was blood on her neck.
He squatted at the edge of the roof, gripping the short railing, and cried out into the dark. But the wind had shifted with the coming of a front, and the breeze blended the sound with the existing night music and carried it away. The air cooled, the breeze stiffened, and the buffeting chill felt good on his face and chest. The wind by turns streamed his hair behind him and whipped it across his face, but he wasn't bothered. The unstable atmosphere and the threat of a storm suited his mood, and he sucked in deep breaths of the tumultuous night air, watching the swaying branches of nearby trees dip and swing like long-limbed dancers. Low, hoary clouds, paler than the sky but darker than the moon, lumbered over the bay and headed east, extinguishing the stars from view.
Ric rose, stepped over the railing, and dropped lightly to the roof below. He traversed the slope until he came to the juncture of the base of the tower and the second story roof. He nestled into the pocket created by the angled surfaces, closed his eyes, and opened all his other senses. The air had grown heavy, almost oppressive, and he could taste the rain on his skin long moments before it actually started falling.
He could go to Shelby now. She was tired and vulnerable, her will weakened by the events of the week. And her desire for him was as great as his for her. She would not refuse him. He could make love to her all night long, hard and fast to start, then over and over again, slowly and sensuously, until they were both sated and content to lie still. He could even reach deep into her mind and compel her to think of the experience as nothing more than an erotic bedtime fantasy. She would wake in the morning and think only that she had just had the most fantastic dream of her life.
The downpour started in earnest, pounding the roof with rivets of rain that stung like biting insects. Ric didn't care. The water bullets felt good, cooling both his mind and body. No, he wouldn't visit Shelby tonight. Creating a nighttime fantasy for her would be easy-too easy. He hadn't waited this long for a female like Shelby to be merely part of a dream. If he was going to have her, he would have all of her, and she would have more than a vision that disappeared with the daylight. He just had to be patient a little longer.
He opened his eyes, blinking against the rainwater streaming down his face. Swords of silver lightning thrust at the ground, followed by bellows of angry thunder that seemed to mock all the lowly inhabitants of earth, himself included. He didn't cower from the storm's fury, but laughed as he dropped down to the porch roof and then the ground. He was le docteur la mort, and he had survived for more than two hundred years, dodging the treacherous machinations of mortals and immortals alike. He hadn't ascended the hierarchy to the Directorate, but he was nevertheless one of the most powerful vampires in the world. He had mastered the power of life and death, and he wouldn't let a cocky rogue like Joel Branduff or a lone human like Shelby Cort defeat him.
His hair was plastered to his face, shoulders, and back, and his jeans were soaked clear through to his skin. The wet, sandy soil sucked at his boots, but he felt better than he had in a long, long time.
It was only hours later, after he had showered and changed that his mind was able to focus on more than just Shelby Cort. Joel Branduff rose to mind, and what formed weren't pretty thoughts. Ric wanted to kick himself for how he had bungled the confrontation with Branduff. If he hadn't been so hungry and his beast so roused, he would have interrogated Branduff thoroughly instead of simply wanting to exert his dominance over the other vampire. There were so many questions he should have asked.
Branduff may not have answered all of them, but he should have at least asked if Branduff was the one who had attacked Lucius Moravich. And regarding the La Pointe man who had died, he should have asked how and where Joel had met the man, and what the two of them were doing when the man "fell." And he hadn't done anything to verify Branduff's story. He should have demanded Branduff's submission to Ric's mind. There were very few vampires strong enough to hide the truth when Ric's insistence demanded it, and he doubted very much that Joel Branduff was one of those few. Other questions plagued him as well. Where was Branduff now living? If he wanted another face-to-face meeting, how would he go about locating the man? And who had tipped Branduff off that he had been searching for him? The meaningless show of force in demonstrating the Hand of Death by killing the plant had been too high a price to pay. He hadn't gotten anything in return except for a canned story that was in all probability nothing but lies.
Ric finally fell asleep just before dawn, his final thought that the next evening would be a better one. After all, anything involving Shelby Cort and Moonlight Madness had to be a good thing.
He woke late that morning, and his first waking thought was a repeat of his final thought before falling asleep. Shelby. He called her house and was not surprised when he got her answering machine. He was sure that she had lots of errands to get caught up on. He left a message asking her to call him as soon as she got in. He busied himself with paperwork at his office and saw a couple of new patients with minor ailments, but his eyes were never far from the clock. When three o'clock came and went, he called her home number again, but got nothing more than the same recorded welcome on her machine. He left a second message, but didn't wait for a return call. As soon as he hung up, he called the sheriff's office.
"Cristallia County Sheriff's Department. This is Seline. How may I direct your call?"
He hated feeding the rumor mill, but it couldn't be helped. "Is Sheriff Cort in? This is Dr. De Chaux."
"I'm sorry, Doctor. She's out on the road. Can I leave a message for her?"
Out on the road? Something new must have happened, and whatever it was, it couldn't be good. "Have her call me at my office when she gets in." He left his number.
It was nearly two hours later when Shelby called him. He had just about been ready to head home.
"Oh, God, Ric, I'm so sorry! It's been a wild day. We got our first really good lead. A bartender at an out-of-town sleaze joint recognized our victim from a photo on TV. He says the guy was a regular for a couple of weeks, but even so probably wouldn't have remembered him except that the guy made a big scene with one of the strippers. We've been trying to track her down all day, but so far no luck."
Ric's blood ran cold. Stripper? He had to find out more. "Strip joints in Shadow Bay? I didn't think such places existed here."
"It's a place called the Diamond Stud on Firelake Road. We have a name and address on the stripper, but she's not answering the door. She's supposed to work tonight. We're sitting on her house now. If she leaves, we'll get her."
The Diamond Stud. A stripper. It was too much of a coincidence. "Who is she, Shelby? Is there any way I can help?"
There was a slight hesitation on the other end. "Ah, Ric, I'm sorry, but I can't give out her name. She hasn't been charged with anything yet. We don't even know for sure if she's involved with the murder. Oh, and I'm going to have to cancel our date for tonight. If this girl surfaces, I'll be busy with interviews. If not ... well, I'm beat. I got called in early this morning, and..."
"Hey, it's okay. You don't have to apologize. I understand."
"Maybe we can get together tomorrow. The Moonlight Madness sale continues all week."
"I'll call you tomorrow afternoon, then. Good luck on the case."
Ric hung up the phone on the lie, giving it a feeling of finality. If Shelby's investigation hadn't involved his brethren, he would have sincerely bidden her all the luck in the world. But if his suspicions were true, her success would mean disaster to the Cristallia County Council. He wasted no time in hanging his "closed" sign in the window and locking the office. By the time he hit the highway, urgency drove him to open the throttle on the cycle all the way. French profanities burst forth and were lost on the wind-not because the speed limit on the road restrained his velocity, but because the bike itself did. The old Peugeot had a top speed of seventy miles per hour in its prime, but nowadays he couldn't get the little engine to push the bike past sixty.
Still, he was home in less than ten minutes. Surrounded by the peace and privacy of the Chicken Palace, he called his adjutant.
"Tuxbridge."
"Listen, my friend-we have problems. Big problems. The sheriff is looking for one of the strippers from the Diamond Stud in connection with the murder, and I'm afraid it's Eva. If it is, the cops have a plant on her house now. When she comes out tonight to go to work, they're going to take her in for questioning. I hate to think about all the possible consequences of such an event."
"I thought you were going to take care of the sheriff, once and for all." Tux's voice was low with antagonism and warning, and Ric got the distinct impression that Tux was more upset with his Overlord than by the news itself.
"I can't control her every future thought. This is something new and couldn't have been anticipated." "So what do you propose to do now, boss?" Tux's final word had a definite edge of sarcasm to it. Ric would address that later.
"What kind of neighborhood does Eva live in? Secluded, or lots of neighbors?"
"Pretty secluded. None of the group is daring enough, or should I say brainless enough, to live in the middle of town, not even dear Eva." Tux's opinion of his brothers and sisters seemed no higher than Ric's.
Ric sighed. "I'll call and leave her a message warning her, but I don't think we should depend on just that. Do you know what time she leaves for work?"
"Around nine-thirty."
"We should go past her house before then and confirm that the squad car is there."
"And if it is, what are we going to do?"
Ric didn't know, but he wasn't going to admit that to Tux. "Come by my house well before dark. We'll coordinate our plans."
"I'll be there by eight. Want me to drive by Eva's on the way?"
"No. I'll slide by myself." It was important that he take the initiative and assert his leadership. "And one way or another I'll be having that little heart-to-heart with Eva that I've been postponing."
"All right. Keep me informed."
Ric hung up and pulled the file on Eva that Tux had given him two weeks ago. He memorized Eva's address and studied the simplified map Tux had drawn showing the easiest route to Eva's house from the highway. He closed the file, left the house, and got into his SUV, grateful for the tinted windows that were a custom modification and just a little darker than the law allowed.
When he had picked up Shelby in the SUV for their dinner date he had feared she would complain about the dark tint just like she complained about his glasses, but she hadn't. No doubt when he had started to kiss her in the SUV following their date she had been as thankful for the cloaking tint as he had been.