"How are you still alive? Or not in a hospital?" She looked perfectly fine, and her clean s.h.i.+rt was minus a bullet hole.
"I"m not like most people."
"No s.h.i.+t," I said, scooting several inches away from her on the sofa as I tried to a.s.sess the situation. She"d knocked me out with the gun, and then she and the old guy had brought me to my apartment. I knew they hadn"t been holding a vigil, which could mean only one thing.
They wanted answers.
But I wanted answers too, so maybe I could use this to my advantage. Then I remembered she"d probably wanted answers from Caine. At least I wasn"t in a torture chamber, dangling from the ceiling in a net with my guts spilling out. Score one for me, but I knew if I didn"t tell her what she wanted, I was a hair"s-breadth away from her unique brand of questioning.
Even the Taliban hadn"t resorted to those measures.
The older man moved with more agility than he"d seemed to possess the night before, and handed me a gla.s.s of water. "Drink that. You"re probably dehydrated after all that blood loss."
I took the gla.s.s from him, not liking the way he was staring at my chest. Was he some old pervert? Was that why he was with the woman who was still stretched out in my chair? I could see why he"d want to be with her. She was gorgeous. Her nearly black hair was pulled into a French braid, but tendrils had spilled out around her face. Her eyes were dark and exotic, the perfect complement to her darker complexion. She was tall and her body was lean, but she had curves in all the right places that men loved.
But for the life of me, I couldn"t figure out why she was with him. His body was slightly stooped and his thinning hair was gray. Wrinkles covered his face, and the thought of them sleeping together made me sick, kind of like Hugh Hefner and all those hot blonde women in his Playboy mansion.
But maybe I could use that to my advantage, too. I"d study them both and try to figure out the dynamics of their relations.h.i.+p.
As I took a sip of the water-which turned into several greedy gulps-I tried to figure out how to play this. Might as well start from the beginning. I set the half-empty gla.s.s on the coffee table, then asked, preparing myself for the worst, "Where"s Derrick?"
"Like I said, he"s dead."
The ache of loss washed through me, but my distrust tapped it down. "I"m just supposed to take your word for that?" My tone was cold and harsh. I refused to believe her. This could be part of her ploy to convince me to share what I knew.
"He was nearly dead when I found him outside the building, but he was worried about you. He knew you"d been gone too long."
I couldn"t hide my sharp intake of air. "So, he wasn"t dead when you found him."
"No," she said softly. "Someone showed up and finished the job after we were out of the building. Which means they"re probably after you now."
It made sense; in fact, I was surprised they hadn"t shown up on my doorstep yet. Yet I still struggled to accept it. "Finished the job... How?"
"They shot him, then dragged his body away to tidy up."
Oh G.o.d. She could have been lying, but I knew it was true. There was little chance he was in a hospital somewhere-the men following us would never let him get that far-and he wasn"t here with me now.
Pain, anger, and a thirst for revenge that caught me off guard flooded me. But I pushed down my grief. This woman had information that could help me find the people who had killed Derrick. I needed to focus on that at the moment.
She sat up and leaned over her legs. "Who was after you?"
"Why did you want to talk to Caine?" I countered.
She released a low growl that raised the hair on the back of my neck. "I think you and I want the same thing, if you"d just cooperate."
"You mean I spill my guts or you"ll do it for me?"
She jumped to her feet, fast and swift, like a predator attacking its prey. But she didn"t attack me, merely released a groan of frustration and began to pace. "You"re not like him. I won"t do that to you." She stopped and held my gaze. "I have other ways to get information from you, but I hope it won"t come that. I think we can help each other."
"I"m not like him," I repeated. "Somehow I don"t think you mean the child molester part."
She remained silent, but the old man s.h.i.+fted on his perch at the end of the sofa. "Lea, tell her."
Lea gave him an incredulous look.
"You know her history. She can help us."
"I don"t think that"s a good idea, Calvin," Lea said, shaking her head.
"You know who I am?" I blurted out without thinking. Obviously they knew who I was or we wouldn"t all be in my apartment having this little powwow.
Lea held up her fingers, ticking one off for every fact. "Rachel Sambrook, age thirty-one. You spent seven years in the Middle East covering the war. You were known for your impulsiveness and courage. You covered quite a few stories most men wouldn"t take. And you didn"t just report the U.S. military line; several of your stories reported on their faults."
I wanted to ask her how she knew all of that, but she beat me to it. "You"ve been out for several hours, and Calvin here is good at getting information. It"s why I hired him."
He snorted, but otherwise remained silent.
I gave a shrug, grimacing at the pain in my neck from where that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Caine had bitten me the night before. "So you know all about me, but I don"t know the first thing about you other than that your name is Lea, you"re handy with a knife, and you"re apparently resistant to bullets."
She engaged in a several-second stare-off with the old guy before turning back toward me, uncertainty in her eyes.
"You"re right. I am all those things, and one more. I was trained as a Cazador. A hunter of things that go b.u.mp in the night. I fought the darkness until it swallowed me whole. They thought they"d destroyed me by making me one of them, but all they did was make me strong enough to truly have a chance at wiping them out."
Letting her look down at me gave her power, so I stood, my eyes nearly level with hers. "Made you one of them? What do you mean? What are you?" I swallowed, suddenly unsure I wanted the answer.
Lea"s eyes never wavered from mine as she said a single word. The answer that had been dancing in my head since this all began.
"Vampire."
CHAPTER 15.
LEA.
Rachel took a step back; involuntarily, I was sure. Human nature dictated that she run from something that could eat her. Her blue eyes narrowed as quickly as they"d widened.
"That"s a crock of bulls.h.i.+t." Her words were strong, but her tone told me something else entirely. She believed me, she just didn"t want to.
I folded my arms over my chest, a slow smile spreading over my face. "Then explain everything you just pointed out to me. The bullet not killing me, my speed and strength. Rachel, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
I didn"t think it was possible that her glare could become any harder, but it did, her eyes becoming mere pinp.r.i.c.ks of blue.
"Don"t quote Sherlock Holmes to me."
I spread my hands wide, palms up, as if in supplication. "He might be fictional but that doesn"t make him wrong. To the majority of the world, I am also fictional. I do not exist, and yet here I stand. You felt Caine"s fangs. You felt his power as he fought to control you. Your wounds from him are healed already, which to you should be impossible, yet the vampire saliva does just that. It hides the bites. You tell me what he is, if not a vampire."
Her scent changed as my words triggered the memories. She swallowed hard. "Let"s say I believe you, for the sake of this conversation."
This was finally moving in the right direction. I decided to throw my information to her. If she proved sketchy, I could always drain her and dump her body in the river. "The vampires I am hunting are being protected by the government at a facility, at least as far as I can tell from my interrogation of Caine. You mentioned the Asclepius Project. Calvin tried to search for it while you were out, but didn"t find anything on the project. The name, however, is interesting."
Her eyes shot straight to Calvin and the laptop that he now had in front of him. She was easily within reach of me if I"d been so inclined. No wonder she was an ace reporter-she was willing to walk right into danger. Unfortunately, the ones who were willing to risk it all to get the story they were after were also the ones who always ended up dead.
Calvin tapped the screen. "Asclepius is from Greek mythology. Turns out, he was all about raising people from the dead. Doesn"t bode well for a project named after him, tied to vampires as it is."
Rachel looked from the screen to me. "Is that what you think they are doing? Raising the dead?" I could see the conflict on her face. To even ask the question had to gall her.
"More likely they are turning high-placed, important officials into vampires. Most vamps have the ability to control people to a degree."
She nodded. "Caine tried to do that to me."
I gave her a tight smile. "The force is strong with you. Those with extreme stubborn streaks and strength of character can resist. We can still force them, but we have to have our own tanks full to manage it."
"And now you"re quoting Star Wars. Really?" Rachel headed into the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge. She cracked it open and took a big swig before setting it on the counter.
Calvin lifted his hand. "I"ll take one of those."
"You"re on the clock, old man." I snapped.
Rachel took one out for him and tossed it to him when she was partway back to the couch. He beamed at her. f.u.c.king ingrate.
"So we have a project named for a character who raised the dead, and we have vampires and a government facility we think exists."
I put my foot on the green army bag and slid it forward. "And whatever may be in Derrick"s bag."
Her eyes popped wide. "How the h.e.l.l did you find that?"
I touched the side of my nose. "It stinks like him."
She pulled the bag closer to her seat and started to rummage through it. "I can probably break his codes and get into his laptop, but it will take time. I took a quick glance last night, but nothing made sense. It seemed a jumble of papers just thrown in the bag in order to throw people off."
"Or completely blacked out," Calvin said.
She glared at him and he looked away. I snapped my fingers, and her blue-eyed glare swung my way. An idea was growing inside me that Calvin would not like, especially when he understood my reasoning.
Before he had just been old and slow, but now he was a liability.
Rachel was young, eager, and as tough as any Cazador I"d ever known. She would make a great replacement for Calvin. But that meant I had to keep her around, keep her alive, and hope to h.e.l.l we both survived whatever storm was brewing on the horizon.
"Here is what I"m going to propose. We both want to find the facility and expose whatever it is the government is doing." I held up my hand to forestall her as her mouth opened to argue. "Yes, we have different motives, but does that matter when the end result will be the same? You will bring your government to justice and I will kill vampires."
Calvin spluttered around his beer, and it was my turn to glare. "You are not a part of this decision, old man." He paled and clamped his mouth shut. No, it wasn"t nice. But I had to be tough. I had to let him go before the vamp who"d fed from him turned him from the light completely. This would be his last hunt, whether he knew it or not.
Rachel leaned back against the couch, looking up at me. "Let me get this straight. You want me to work with you? Go in as a team and expose this Asclepius Project?"
I gave her my best smile. "Yes, that is what I am proposing."
I could almost see her weighing the pros and cons.
"I"ll work on Derrick"s notes, see what I can find. What are you going to do?" Her gaze swept between the two of us.
"I have a patron who has been a naughty boy," I said. "He"s gone to ground, but I mean to find him and make him talk. I believe he has ties to this project."
A whiff of gun oil and two-day-old sweat wafted under the front door. I spun around and drew in another breath to be sure, then said, "We have company. Your friend Sean is back."
Rachel hefted the army bag and all but threw it at me, whispering, "Put this back where you found it and get the h.e.l.l out of here. I"ll deal with him."
I didn"t move. "Tell me we have a deal. Until this hunt is over, you and I will share information and work together as a team. Until the vampires are all dead."
Calvin gave a little choking sound.
She nodded twice. "Yes, yes, now get out of here."
I grabbed her hand and brought the palm to my mouth, slicing it with my teeth. I did the same to my own hand and then slapped our palms together. "Now swear it."
Her brows tightened and she stared at our clasped hands for a split second. "I swear I will work with you until all the vampires are dead. Okay?"
I let her go and nodded. "Better than okay. Follow up with your leads today. I"ll meet you back here at eight and we"ll compare notes."
Calvin followed me into her bedroom and watched in silence while I stuffed the bag into her secret hiding spot. Grabbing him around the waist, I all but threw him over my shoulder and climbed out the window to the fire escape as I pulled my cowl up over my head. Thank G.o.d for dreary fall days with plenty of cloud cover.
"Put me down, Lea."
I did as he asked, then shut the window behind us and started down the metal steps.
"You replacing me?"
I stopped on the landing below him and looked up. For just a moment I could see the young man I"d taken on as my helper almost fifty years ago. Fifty years we"d worked together, and there had only ever been one slip-up. One moment of weakness on his part-a night I would not forget and he seemed determined not to remember.
"Yes. You knew it would be coming, so why are you surprised?"
"But her? Why her?"
I tore my gaze from him and leapt from the fire escape, letting my body fall through the open air. As I landed lightly in a crouch, I stared up at the figure slowly making his way down. Calvin would never understand, but the truth was I saw a kindred spirit in Rachel. A woman determined to make a difference despite the dangers around her.
That was what I needed at my side, as my teammate.
A force to be reckoned with.
And, if nothing else, Rachel was surely that.