3
A few blocks west, morning sunlight fell through the gaps in the curtains and woke Jamie Anderson from the deepest, most restful sleep of his life. He turned onto his side and took a deep, unrestricted, pain-free breath; he smiled. His lungs worked beautifully, in a way they never had, and the sun touched his face with warmth and gentleness. The mattress cradled him like a cloud. Comfortable and content, he basked a moment, untroubled by any of the daily worries that gave him chronic indigestion.
And then he remembered last night.
He sat up with a gasp, eyes flipping wide, heart slamming against his ribs. “Oh my God, oh my God,” he said to the empty room that wasn’t his.
All of it came flooding back: the shadow following him home, the knock on the door, the stranger who’d invited himself in, the fogginess of his own thoughts and resistance. He remembered a kiss that had turned to a bite on his neck, and clapped his hand to the spot now, feeling only the sensitive, slightly-raised flesh of a new scar. He recalled waking up, the faces hovering over him, the chill of the morgue.
The morgue. Oh shit, he’d died. Hadn’t he? But then those people…the two cops, Lanny and Trina, and the other guy, with the pale hair. Sasha. Who could growl like a freaking dog.
They’d told him he was a vampire, and brought him here, to this apartment, and somehow, he’d managed to convince himself that he’d imagined the whole thing.
But here he was, and he could breathe.
He’d been born with asthma; had almost died when he was two, and then again at six. At twelve, the one and only time his mother had let him go away to a boys’ summer camp upstate, when a bee sting had triggered a panic attack, which had triggered the worst asthma attack of his life. According to his then-best friend Evan, he’d been dead a whole thirty seconds in the ambulance before the paramedics revived him. It was normal for him: the diminished lung capacity, taking hits off his inhaler, staying indoors when it was too cold, or too hot, or too smoggy.
But this was a completely foreign sensation: breathing deep and free and easy. He wasn’t dizzy, or shaky, or achy. Air moved through his open throat into lungs that worked like bellows, and it took him a long, stupid moment to recognize the euphoria in his blood for what it was: oxygen. For the first time in his life, he was getting enough oxygen.
A mirror sat positioned across from the bed and he looked up into it, reaching out of habit for his glasses on the nightstand. His hand froze. He didn’t need the glasses; he could see clearly. He stared at his reflection, his own familiar, narrow face made new by the lack of wire frames, and he saw color in his cheeks and lips. No longer waxy and china-white, his face glowed with the subtle pinkness of health.
He smiled, and then startled hard when he saw the fangs. Carefully, watching himself in the mirror, he probed the point of one canine with the tip of his tongue and watched as both fangs descended a fraction; he could feel it in his jaw, some new muscle that forced those new, wicked teeth longer, more dangerous. More useful. When he pulled his tongue back, and relaxed his mouth, they retracted again, so they were proportionate. They didn’t push at his lip like the fake fangs in movies. No, these were designed by nature, sophisticated predator camouflage.
“So that’s that,” he said aloud, and took a deep breath just for the joyous novelty of it. “Now what?”
~*~
Nikita didn’t drag Lanny out of the apartment, but it was a near thing. “Go with him. It’ll be fine,” Trina said with an encouraging smile she didn’t feel. Much to her shame, when they were gone, and she’d heard their footfalls go down the stairs, she was flooded with relief.
“Shit,” she muttered, sinking down onto the couch.
Sasha made a low sound in his throat that she found strangely comforting and came to sit in the overstuffed chair across from her. He didn’t sit like a human would, she noted with a touch of amusement, but pulled his legs up in the seat and flopped across the armrest like a dog getting comfy. He settled his chin on the back of his hand and looked at her with a blend of sympathy and lupine attentiveness.
“Why would Alexei do this?” she asked. There were so many other things she’d meant to ask, but Sasha’s presence had a way of inviting honesty. She didn’t want platitudes right now, only answers.
“Maybe he wanted to help.”
She sent him a look. “You really believe that?”
He made an apologetic face. “Not really, no. I mean – I think he knew he was helping, but I don’t think he did it out of the goodness of his heart. Sorry.”
“No.” She waved off the apology. “It’s what I figured. Got any magical Russian insight?”
“Maybe.” He shifted, curling up tighter in the chair. “Vampires – the ones I’ve met – are really territorial. They have families, sometimes, people who are close to them. But they don’t get along with each other all that well. Nik killed Alexei’s sire. So.” His nose scrunched up. “There is bad blood there.”
“In more ways that one,” she said with a halfhearted smile. “What are we going to do about him?”
“Alexei? I don’t know. Maybe we can reason with him.”
It was a lie and they both knew it.
Her phone pinged, and it was a text from her captain.
“Boss wants to see Lanny and me about the, quote, ‘missing goddamn body problem.’” She blew out a breath. “Feel like taking a walk?”
Sasha picked his head up, grinning. “Always.”
~*~
Based on his apartment, Lanny Webb was not the sort of person who would have wanted to befriend Jamie.
The décor consisted of Ikea pieces and a few bachelor pad staples. All the latest electronics, but no art of any kind. Jamie spotted a few framed family photos on top of the bookshelf in the living room…a bookshelf filled with CDs and stacks of magazines, predominantly Men’s Health and Shooting Times. The spare bedroom had been set up as a home gym, and the fridge was a blend of takeout containers and protein shakes, bags of dried apricots and domestic beer.
A portrait emerged in Jamie’s mind of a gym rat turned cop with no hobbies or interests aside from working out and paging through the occasional magazine. On his cursory walk-through, he didn’t spot so much as one real book.
How boring.
How normal.
His own room, in all the apartments he’d ever lived in, had always been a menagerie of art and half-strung canvasses. Coffee table books and computer printouts, museum-bought prints of his favorite inspirations to keep him fueled. Christmas lights and paint-streaked jeans and stacks of library paperbacks. He’d always kept orchids in the windowsill, usually a beta fish in a glass bowl. He’d surrounded himself with color and chaos and all the things that made him feel artistic.
And yet he’d never had much of a personal life. No steady girlfriend. No late nights out at bars, uproarious stories to tell after the fact. His life was small, closely-held, and unremarkable.
Lanny Webb, by contrast, was the sort of man who started bar fights, fucked women in public restrooms, and inspired the envy and aspiration of the men around him. His apartment was dull, but his life was not.
He’d never been able to decide which was the more pathetic existence.
Jamie sat down on the black leather couch and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.
His stomach growled, but nothing in Lanny’s fridge sounded appealing. Since the bastard creep who’d bitten him – Chad, the others had said his name was – hadn’t robbed him of his money, only his life as he knew it, he still had about fifty bucks cash in his wallet and all his credit cards.
New York was a big city. What were the odds someone would recognize him? Besides, no one other than his roomie and a handful of classmates even knew him. And Trina hadn’t told him to stay inside, only to lay low.
A takeout menu was taped up by the microwave, but he dismissed the idea immediately. He wanted to go out, breathe in city air, see the day without his glasses for the very first time. He wouldn’t stay out long, just enough to grab a late breakfast and stretch his legs a little. He’d come right back after.
Nodding to himself, he went to shower.
~*~
Lanny had met Trina’s dad a year ago. He’d been down from Buffalo, where he and his brother owned a moderately successful furniture business, and he’d swung by the precinct to take Trina out to lunch. Plenty of silver in his dark hair, sun and laugh lines on his face, but still trim and healthy-looking, Steven Baskin had spoken with a flawless upstate accent, but maintained an air of other all the same. He had Trina’s vivid blue eyes – Nikita’s eyes, Lanny now knew – gunmetal in some lights, oceanic in others. Something about the Slavic tilt of his brows, in the crooked, secretive smile hinted at bitter winters and the indominable spirit of a people whose oppressors had never managed to crush them. Steve Baskin had been born in America, but he was Russian through-and-through, and Lanny had decided he wholeheartedly approved of it, that day they’d shaken hands in the detective bullpen and Steve had invited him to come grab meatball subs with them.
But if Nikita Baskin was the real Russian of the bunch…well, Lanny wanted to change his opinion on record. Trina’s family sucked.
“I’m not gonna fucking just attack somebody,” Lanny griped. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Nikita just hummed and signaled the bartender for another round. Since they were the only ones at the long mahogany bar at the Lion’s Den, the man stepped right over and refilled their tumblers with vodka.
“Okay, two things,” Lanny said when the guy was gone. “One: I fucking hate vodka. Especially at ten a.m. And two: if you’re so worried I might go nuts and bite somebody, do you really think getting me drunk is the best strategy?”
“You won’t get drunk,” Nikita said, downing his own shot. “At least not for a while. And it takes the edge off.”
“I don’t have an edge.”
Nikita turned to him slowly, gaze hooded and unimpressed. “You’re all edge, my friend.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“On that we are agreed.” He made another little motion and the bartender returned. “Drink your vodka.”
Lanny did, if only so Nikita would shut up about it. It warmed him, like all good liquor, but this was his third shot and he didn’t feel the usual rush of lightheaded giddiness that normally accompanied drinking.
“So what? We’re just gonna do shots all day?” His phone vibrated inside his jacket pocket, reminding him that he had an unread text. “’Cause I’m supposed to go to work.”
“Not today you’re not.”
“Oh, fuck you.” Lanny started to push back from the bar–
And Nikita reached out too fast for comprehension and locked his hand around Lanny’s wrist.
Lanny was strong, but Nikita was something else entirely.
“One more shot,” the Russian said, calmly, “and then we go.”
Lanny started to protest and the hand tightened a fraction; he felt the bones in his forearm shift under the force of that grip, and he nodded. “Yeah. Alright.”
The bartender came to pour him another round.
~*~
“Where’s your partner?” Captain Abbot asked.
Trina managed to keep her expression casual when she said, “He’s sick.”
“Yeah. Bourbon’ll do that to you.”
“He has food poisoning, I think.”
“Sure.” The captain gave a dismissive head shake and opened the file that sat before him on his desk blotter. “As soon as he sobers up, he needs to get his ass in here. This disappearing body shit?” He lifted his head and glanced first at Trina, then at Dr. Harvey, who sat in the visitor chair beside her. “It’s a fucking PR nightmare.”
“Sir,” Trina said.
Harvey cleared her throat delicately. “Actually, sir, I’m not sure ‘bodies’ is the right way of putting it.” When he stared at her, she continued: “Both of them got up off the slab and walked out of the morgue. The corpses weren’t stolen – they weren’t even corpses.”
“But you pronounced them both dead at the scene.”
“I did,” she said with a sigh.
“And why did you do that?”
“No pulse, no respiration, no response to stimuli. Liver temps.”
Trina winced when she thought about the thermometer piercing flesh that wasn’t, in fact, dead.
“So explain to me how they got up and walked,” the captain said.
“We have it on camera, sir,” Trina chimed in, drawing his jowly glare. “We’re thinking that there must have been some sort of drug involved. Something that lowered their heartrates and their body temperatures and made them seem dead.”
He grunted. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Do you have any better theories?” she countered. Respectfully – she hoped.
His brows dropped low over his eyes and he exhaled in an unhappy rush. He didn’t reprimand her, though; swiveled his chair back toward the computer and sighed. “Fuck it. Whatever it is, we need it cleared up before the press conference.”
“Press conference?” Trina and Harvey asked at the same time. Trina glanced over and saw her own mounting panic reflected in the ME’s eyes.
“Yeah,” Captain Abbot said with another angry grunt. When he got worked up, the man sounded like a water buffalo. “The commissioner wants to ‘get in front of the panic.’ Whatever the fuck that means. Goddamn mayor’s gonna be there and everything.”
“The mayor?” Trina asked. “Really?”
“The asshole himself.”
Trina swapped another look with Harvey.
“Will you need us there?” Harvey asked.
“Nah.” The captain waved at them, his usual dismissal. “But figure this shit out, yeah?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused, and escaped out into the bullpen.
Where Trina saw that a bright-haired visitor awaited her at her desk, spinning slow circles in her swivel chair, pale eyes tracking across the crowded, chaotic room.
Damn it. She’d told Sasha to wait outside.
“Trina,” Harvey started, voice tired, and then she caught sight of Sasha. “Hey, isn’t that the guy you and Webb brought to the morgue last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Right,” Harvey said, her calm deliberate. “And he is?”
“It’s a very long story.”
“Cliff’s Notes, then.”
On his next spin, Sasha spotted Trina standing outside the captain’s door and smiled wide enough to show the too-sharp points of his canines. Beside her, Harvey jerked a little; just a quick movement that she immediately smoothed away. Whether she’d reacted to seeing his fangs, or was simply struck by the combination of almost-glowing blue eyes and his completely guileless face, Trina didn’t know. It was all rather shocking.
She said, “Let’s just say that he’s a very close friend of the family I’ve just met recently.”
“Right,” Harvey said flatly.
“On my Russian side.”
And when Harvey said, “Ah,” she sounded like that made at least a little sense. No one ever questioned anything that happened on Trina’s Russian side.
Trina took a shallow, bracing breath and walked toward her desk, not surprised, but dismayed, when Harvey stayed glued to her side.
When they reached him, Sasha turned his smile on the doctor and said, “Good morning, Doctor Harvey.”
Harvey blinked, face blanking over with surprise. “Oh. Um. Good morning.”
“Harvey, this is Sasha.”
“Yes, we met last night,” Sasha said, with all the brightness of the irrepressible little sunbeam he was.
His cheer was the reason Trina managed to keep her tone light when she said, “Sasha, I thought we talked about you waiting outside.”
“We did, yes,” he said, his attention coming back to her. “But Nik said I was supposed to stay with you.”
“And what Nik says trumps whatever I say?”
“I’m sorry, yes,” he said, and didn’t sound sorry in the least.
She sighed. “Fine. I could use your help anyway.”
He looked delighted by the prospect.
Harvey, caught between an admirable state of composure and a full-on freakout, said, “Trina, where is Lanny? Really?”
“It’s actually part of that whole long story.”
Harvey looked a little hurt, but nodded. “You know I’m gonna want a real explanation at some point, right?”
“Christine,” Trina started, and the doctor stopped her with a raised hand.
“A man walked out of my morgue. A dead guy got up off my table. I think I’m owed the truth.”
Trina opened her mouth…but then nodded. Harvey was right. If their roles had been reversed, she would have been demanding answers. “You’ll get one, I promise.” She gave Sasha a little wave and he sprang to his feet, hair bouncing. “Let’s just say the truth is a lot more X-Files than you probably think.”
Harvey’s eyes popped wide.
Trina gave her an apologetic smile and headed for the door, Sasha trailing after her.
He caught up to her easily out on the sidewalk, falling into step alongside. “Are you going to tell her about Lanny?” he asked, curious rather than judgmental. She had a feeling Nikita would already be lecturing her.
“That wasn’t my original plan, no. But she’s one of the good ones. I don’t like lying to her.”
Sasha nodded sagely. “That’s what made Nikita such a terrible Chekist. The lying ate him up from the inside out.”
“Does it still?” She thought about a life spent more or less on the run, just the two of them keeping to themselves, forming no outside attachments, keeping their powers hidden away like contraband so as not to draw attention. In that scenario, the lying never really stopped – even if killing wasn’t in the job description anymore.
Sasha sent her a quick, sad smile. “That’s the problem, though. If you pretend to be something for long enough, it usually sticks.”
~*~
It was easier being indoors, Lanny realized as he and Nikita walked down the street. His senses were no less finely-tuned, but in a bar, or the apartment, he could sit still and catalogue the sights, the scents, the sounds; could ground himself and take the time to pick apart all the subtle differences and scent markers he’d never noticed before. When he was human.
(Thinking of himself as not human wasn’t going to start feeling normal anytime soon.)
But outside, moving, the hypersensitivity felt like an assault. He tried breathing through his mouth, but he could taste scents too. And a blaring, air raid siren part of his brain was telling him he was surrounded by threats…and by prey. His body wanted blood, and it was all around him.
Sweat gathered at his temples, under his arms, in the small of his back. He could hear his breath rasping in and out of his mouth and knew he had to look like a drunk or a psycho; he swore he could feel his eyes pinging side to side as he scanned the sidewalk, the street, the windows up above.
“It gets easier,” Nikita said calmly beside him. “It’s normal after a while, and you can control yourself.”
“I can control myself,” Lanny said, without much heat because he was breathing too hard.
“Alright. What are you thinking about right now? What do you want to do?”
A simple question in theory. But he wanted so much.
He wanted to go across the street and pick a fight with the douchebag in the ugly hat over there because aggression was like a living thing inside him, and that guy needed a good ass-beating, it looked like. He wanted to turn and deck Nikita just for being an asshole.
Wanted to find Trina and tell her that he was whole now, healed, that he wasn’t going to die, and then lay her out on the bed and shred her clothes with his teeth.
And deeper, more primal than those things, throbbing relentlessly inside him like a fresh bruise, was a hunger that had nothing to do with a full belly.
When he didn’t respond, Nikita said, almost kindly, “We’ll get some blood. Don’t worry.”
Lanny didn’t pay much attention to where they walked, simply juggling his own impulses and allowing Nikita to lead, so he was surprised when they turned down into a narrow alley which turned the corner into another. The smell hit him like a physical shove: blood. And lots of it.
Before, he might have said that blood had a faint tang to it, especially at those crime scenes where it had clotted and dried and begun to stink like death. But now it hung on the air like his mother’s marinara sauce. Copper and salt and meat and life, rich and fresh. It smelled cold – and he marveled that he could tell such a thing.
“Here,” Nikita said, catching him by the arm and pulling him to a halt in front of a door with peeling yellow paint and a rusty metal sign over the door that read Chop-Chop. The sign, Lanny noted, was shaped like a pig.
Nikita pressed the bell, and knocked three times, and a moment later the door opened to reveal a gigantic man in a flannel shirt and a white apron, sporting a massive ginger beard.
“Oh, hey,” the guy said, grinning, wiping his hands down his apron and leaving greasy streaks behind. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal intricate sequences of tattoos on both arms; Lanny spotted rings and spacers in his ears. Not a lumberjack, then, but a hipster.
His hackles immediately lowered.
“Hello, David,” Nikita said in a voice that was probably supposed to be pleasant. “We’d like to buy two quarts, please.”
Lanny stared at him.
The man, David, nodded, grin widening, like Nikita’s request made perfect sense. “Aw yeah, man, perfect timing, the truck just came by this morning. Hold on and I’ll grab it. You need a bag?”
“Please.”
“Be right back.”
The door shut and he disappeared.
“What the fuck?” Lanny asked.
Nikita pointed at the sign over the door. “This is one of those old-fashioned butcher shops. Farm-to-table like the kids like these days, you know? Lots of specialty cuts.”
“Yeah,” Lanny drawled. “And we’re gonna get some nice steaks or something?”
Nikita shot him a look like he was stupid – he was getting damn sick of that look. “David makes his own blood sausage.”
Oh.
Oh.
“So he sells you blood?”
“When I need it. Fresh from the farm.” Nikita made a face that was almost a smile.
“But I thought you and Sasha…” Lanny motioned to his own throat.
Nikita’s expression closed off completely and he faced forward again. “I spare Sasha as much as I can.”
“Hmm. You guys are real close, huh?”
No response, save the quick glint of Nikita’s gaze; he didn’t turn his head.
Just to be a shit, Lanny said, “Is it a best friend kinda situation, or is it more like–”
“Finish the sentence and I will introduce your face to the pavement,” he said, tonelessly.
Lanny snorted. “Uh-huh. Real tough guy you are.”
The door opened again, sparing Lanny another monotone Russian rebuttal, and David filled the threshold, still smiling, straining plastic shopping bag in his hands.
“Is that all?” he asked. “Can I interest you guys in this fantastic bit of skirt steak?”
“Just the blood, please,” Nikita said, pulling bills out of his wallet.
“Alrighty. Well, be sure to let me know if you need more; I can place a larger order next time.”
“Thank you, David.”
“Thanks a bunch!” He tucked the money into his pocket and shut the door on them with a resounding thump.
“Who the hell says ‘alrighty’?” Lanny muttered.
Nikita knotted the handles of the bag together and set off back the way they’d come. “The man who’s going to help keep your cravings under control.”
God, this guy was dull as shit. “Does he know that you’re a - you know,” Lanny said, floundering lamely for the word. He actually hated the word vampire. It made him feel like a teenage girl.
“His girlfriend’s a vampire,” Nikita said, “so yes, he knows.”
“His girlfriend?” Lanny felt his brows shoot up. “Are you serious?”
“She’s one of the responsible ones. And David provides her, and those who want it, with blood. It keeps everyone safe that way.”
“Damn,” Lanny said, feeling a little dazed. Then another thought struck. “Hey, if there are others like you, why don’t you hang out with them? Aren’t you lonely?”
Nikita shot him a quick, hard sideways look. “I don’t need company.”
“’Cept for Sasha, huh?”
Nikita’s mouth set into a hard, grim line. “We’ll take this back to your apartment. Being hungry is making you extra stupid.”
“I’m not hungry,” Lanny said, frowning.
But he was. He was starving. And the refrigerated pig’s blood in the bag Nikita carried called to him in a way that alcohol never had.
“You’re right,” Nikita said as they emerged on the sidewalk again. “You’re not. You’re thirsty.”
~*~
Jamie was beginning to think that leaving the apartment had been a bad idea.
At first, the novelty of seeing and hearing and, God, tasting everything around him had been the stuff of his wildest imaginings. It was better than Disneyland, being healthy and feeling good as he walked down the street, head held up, lungs working correctly, gaze drinking in everything about a city that was usually just white noise and blurry lights.
But then he’d stepped into his favorite indie coffeeshop and things had begun to go downhill from there.
The exposed brick walls and dark-stained hardwood floors that he’d always found so charming did nothing to muffle the din of voices, clacking laptop keys, and hissing machinery. He heard all of it as a wall of sound, and then the individual notes as well in a layered sensation unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He started to clap his hands over his ears, and then realized that would make him look weird at best, insane at worst. So he crammed his hands in his jeans pockets and tried not to grind his teeth.
And then there were the smells. Coffee, of course, sharper and more potent than was normal, but then the competing perfumes of all sorts of humans. And some salty undertone that made him salivate.
Blood, something ancient and unknowable whispered in the back of his mind. That smell is blood.
As the line inched forward, his nerves wound tighter and tighter, a thread pulling tight. It wouldn’t take much to snap it.
His stomach growled, loud enough for the guy in front of him to hear it and turn around with a frowning glance. Jamie clapped his hand over his belly and gave an apologetic smile. He wished now that he’d choked down one of Lanny’s protein shakes, because he was starving suddenly, lightheaded and frantic. He’d order two sandwiches, he decided, even though he’d never eaten more than half of one at a time. Whatever he couldn’t finish he would carry back with him – and he would go back, that he knew. Being out in public was too much. He definitely should have called Lanny or Trina this morning. Or Sasha – could have used the blond werewolf’s soothing demeanor right about now.
That’s how hungry he was: he could think the word werewolf without batting an eye.
He finally reached the counter and, voice trembling, ordered two bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwiches and a tall cappuccino. When he stepped to the side to wait, he had to hold himself up against the counter, hands, and then arms shaking. He didn’t know if it was hunger, nerves, some new vampire ailment, or a combination of all three. God knew. He was so far out of his depth.
When the barista passed over his travel cup and greasy bag of sandwiches, he thanked her frantically, spun around, and ran right into the person waiting behind him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he started, juggling his things. And then he saw who it was.
His roommate, Jessica.
She wasn’t wearing her usual makeup, her eyes red and puffy from crying, ringed in dark circles of exhaustion. Her usually sleek hair tried to slip loose from her sloppy ponytail and she wore the stretched-out sweatshirt she usually saved for laundry day or movies on the couch. She was grieving him; or was at least shaken to have had death get so close to her.
They stared blankly at one another a long moment, and then she really saw him.
She dropped her sunglasses and they hit the floor with a clatter. Her mouth opened, and a tiny, strangled sound moved from the depths of her throat.
Oh no.
“J-j-jaime?” she stuttered. “Oh my God, but you’re–”
He bolted.
Someone stood just inside the door of the shop, and Jamie elbowed him out of the way, heard alarmed shouts and a crash of a table. He kept going, didn’t look back.
The exhaust-soaked air of the sidewalk felt fresh by comparison to the shop, but the panic switch had been flipped and he kept going, breaking into a jog and legging it back toward Lanny’s apartment.
Trying to explain that he was live and well would have been difficult. But the impossible thing? The way he’d looked at her, caught her scent, and wanted to press his face into her throat. Wanted to sink his fangs and drink.
More than he’d ever wanted food, or drink, or sleep, or sex, he’d wanted to bite his roommate and draw her blood into his mouth, down his throat. Had imagined its heat and velvet texture.
He couldn’t handle that urge. He couldn’t.
So he ran. Bumping into people, drawing outraged shouts, elbowing and squeezing and cutting across traffic to the blare of horns and squeal of brakes.
He didn’t stop until he reached the lobby of Lanny’s building, and then he collapsed against the mailboxes, breathing raggedly through his mouth.
He still held his coffee, though some of it had slopped out through the drinking hole in the lid and scalded his hand; the skin gleamed pink and angry, though the pain was already receding. He’d crushed the sandwiches in his other fist, the bag crumpled up and starting to tear beneath his fingertips.
He sank down slow, until his butt hit the tile, and sat with his heart racing and his mind struggling to process something that felt like instinct, though it was a completely foreign sensation. Tears blurred his vision, and he pressed his forehead to his knee, blinking furiously.
“I’m not a monster,” he whispered. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m not…”
~*~
“I have no idea what I’m going to do,” Trina admitted. “I can’t tell my captain what’s really happening, but I have to actually pretend to be following body-snatching leads. Shit.”
Sasha made a sympathetic noise in the passenger seat and took another bite of his hamburger.
“I’m half-tempted to track down Alexei and arrest his ass. He is the culprit, after all.”
“Oh no,” Sasha said, swallowing. “Don’t do that.”
She glanced across the interior of the unmarked car toward him, brows lifted in question as she took a bite of her own burger. They were parked in front of Burger King, partly because they’d both been hungry, but mostly because she was at a big fat dead end in her investigation. She’d never had this problem before: she knew exactly who’d committed the crime, but couldn’t do anything about it.
“The police wouldn’t believe you,” Sasha explained, “and if they did, you couldn’t keep Alexei in a cell anyway. You have to have silver to keep a vampire locked up.”
She slumped down deeper in her seat. “How helpful.”
“And Alexei,” Sasha said, frowning out through the windshield. “Nik is very angry. If Alexei is smart, he’ll be hiding.”
“Yeah, well–”
Sasha sat bolt upright suddenly, burger falling out of his hands and landing on the floorboards.
“What?”
He growled, a low, deep, threatening sound.
“Sasha–” Trina started.
And Alexei Romanov stepped in front of the cruiser and waved at them through the windshield.
~*~
Lanny detected it the moment they stepped into his building’s lobby: a presence. Not just the hum of awareness that signaled someone standing behind you, not any sort of ambient noise. He could smell someone – pick up his individual scent, know it was a him, one with a faint whiff of blood about his person – and knew that whoever it was had passed through recently and only once; knew that whoever it was was still in the building.
“Did you forget about Jamie?” Nikita asked, and then it all slotted into place.
“Shit, yeah.” Lanny stood in front of the mailboxes, nose full of scent, and matched the name and the face to what he was detecting. Jamie Anderson. Little guy. Artist. Newly a vampire.
“Damn,” he muttered, rubbing at his nose with the back of his hand, trying to block some of the relentless odor of another vampire – a male, a rival his brain said. “This is really fucking weird.”
“Hmm,” Nikita hummed, and led the way up the stairs. Over his shoulder, he said, “Try to control yourself. You’re a lot bigger than he is.”
Lanny refused to make any promises. By the time he fitted his key in the lock, the back of his neck felt tight, his upper lip twitching against his fangs.
But then he got the door open, and there was Jamie curled up on the sofa in a miserable little ball, hugging his knees to his chest, and the fight bled right back out of Lanny. Not a rival at all; just a kid.
Jamie’s head snapped around when they entered, and for one moment he seemed to relax, sagging back into the couch cushions. He opened his mouth to speak – and then froze, eyes widening. He took a deep breath in through his nose, sniffing. Stared at Lanny. “Oh my God, you’re one too, now.” He snapped his mouth shut, gulping audibly. “And I don’t even know how I know that, but I do. I can smell it.” With a groan, he pressed his face into his knees.
“Alright, alright,” Nikita said. He shut the door and went to set the bag of blood on the counter. “Come here both of you. Yes, Lanny is a vampire now,” he said to Jamie. And to Lanny: “Where’s your microwave?”
Five minutes later, Lanny sat beside Jamie on a barstool at his kitchen island drinking a mug of animal blood. And liking it. The Catholic in him wondered how many Hail Marys and Our Fathers he’d have to say to get over this. The vampire in him wished the contents of his cup were a little stronger.
Jamie seemed to be having a similar inner war if his expression was anything to go by.
“Is everybody gonna turn into one?” he asked, licking blood off his upper lip. “Is this like the plague or something? Shit – is this I Am Legend? Fuck, I knew it.”
“No, it isn’t a plague,” Nikita said sternly. He stood on the opposite side of the island, hands braced on the counter, looking like the world’s grumpiest guidance counselor. “This is all because of one vampire.” He looked grim. “We’ve got to put a stop to it. I do. It’s my fault.”
“Pretty sure you weren’t there when he was making out with people’s necks,” Lanny said.
“No, but I had the chance to kill him, and didn’t take it.”
Jamie choked on his next sip.
Lanny said, “Damn. You’re gonna kill him?”
“Do you want him out there loose turning other people?”
“No, but, I mean…didn’t you used to be the president of his dad’s fan club or something?”
Nikita snorted. “Or something.”
~*~
Sasha kept up a steady, rolling growl, words full of gravel. “Lock your door. Stay in the car.” He popped his own door and slid out of the cruiser with the graceful, threatening movements of a predator. She’d seen it last night and marveled at it still: the way he went from looking like a slender nineteen-year-old to something poised and dangerous. Even without shifting, Sasha turned into the sort of thing you didn’t want to run into in an alley.
He approached Alexei with his head down – shielding his throat – lips skinned back off his teeth, snarling now. The sound sent a shiver down Trina’s spine.
Alexei held up both hands, palms out; his expression remained mild. “I didn’t come to fight, Sasha. I wanted to check on Lanny.”
Sasha’s head dropped even lower, shoulders bunching up. He looked ready to spring. “How do you think he is after you turned him? Why would you do that? You know better!”
In her mirror, Trina spotted a handful of customers that had come to a standstill in the parking lot, watching what looked like a major beatdown about to unfold. And Sasha was growling. Shit.
She opened her door, climbed out, and said, “Boys, let’s not make a big scene in broad daylight, okay?”
They both turned to her.
Sasha’s growl cut off and he looked dismayed. “You got out of the car.”
“And both of you should get in it, right now, before this ends up on YouTube.” When they stared at her, she clapped her hands together once, sharply. “Right now.”
Which was how she ended up with Russian royalty in the backseat of her unmarked cruiser.