David dropped his face into his hands. "I"m sorry. It just-I"m sorry." His voice was m.u.f.fled.
Max walked slowly to where Lydia stood. She stared at her for a long moment, searching her face, studying her features. Plumper than her own, more careworn. But suddenly there were similarities.
"You...you"re...our mother?"
"I didn"t ever want you to know," Lydia said, and it seemed as if she had to force the words through a s.p.a.ce far too small.
"Why?" Max asked.
Lydia closed her eyes, shook her head quickly "Oh, come on. Is this your fantasy, Maxine? That your birth mother was a teenage runaway who sold her body on the streets to get by?"
Max"s eyes filled with tears. "This is too much all at once. I can"t deal with this right now." She blinked rapidly, brushed her eyes with the back of one hand. "Jesus, where the h.e.l.l is that ambulance?" She paced away, looked out the window, then dropped the curtain and turned again. "Did you know this all along? Is that why you had Lou introduce us?"
Lou spoke before Lydia could answer. "She didn"t know, Max. I... I had a suspicion. I knew your birthday was the same day Lydia always lights a candle and spends the day weeping for the babies she gave up. And that was why I put the two of you together So you could figure it out for yourselves."
Max stared at him, her face wet now. "You should have told me. How could you not tell me?"
"How could I tell you when I wasn"t even sure myself?"
"Well, this is all very touching," Stiles said at last-stepping closer to the door. "But the longer I stand around listening to this soap opera, the farther that animal is getting from me." He started for the door.
Again Lou stepped into his path.
"Get out of my way, Malone."
"Give me the crossbow, Stiles."
Stiles smiled darkly, shook his head side to side. Take it, if you think you can." That implies that you don"t think I can."
The man"s smile widened, twisting his scarred face into a warped semblance of a sneer. "You"re saggy, baggy, out of shape and tired."
"Well, yeah... " Lou shrugged, pulled his revolver, and pushed the barrel into Stiles"s belly, all in one smooth motion. "But I have this."
Stiles shot his hands up over his head. Lou reached out and took the crossbow from one of them. "Now, go sit down."
Stiles glared at him, but he went back to his corner and sat. A second later a siren screamed outside, growing louder until finally its strobes of red and white light were chasing each other through the room from beyond the windows.
Lou put his gun away and turned to open the door as paramedics came inside carrying red boxes of equipment. Max stood, watching everything happen and seeing none of it. She was disoriented, confused and angry as h.e.l.l.
And then Lou was there, pulling her close to him. "You look shocky."
"You should"ve told me, Lou."
"You had so much else to deal with."
"No s.h.i.t." Mentally, she went over the shocks of the past few days. She"d found out that she had a twin sister, met that sister and learned she was dying. She had seen her best friend lying in a coma from which she might never recover. She had discovered that the ex-hooker with the heart of gold she had been jealous of was her mother. And tonight she had met her first vampire. Face-to-face. Jesus.
"Go to the hospital with your sister. Watch over her. Keep him away from her."
"Dante or Stiles?"
"Both. You shouldn"t have to worry about Stiles, though. I"m gonna keep him with me."
"And where are you gonna be?"
"I have to go after Dante."
The paramedics were muttering over Morgan and strapping her onto a stretcher now. Max watched them for a moment. Then, "Lou, you just stopped Stiles from going after Dante-a move I could kick you for. Now you"re going after him yourself and taking Stiles with you?"
"I stopped Stiles from hunting him down like an animal. Killing him-or worse. That"s not what I intend to do."
"No, you"re gonna hunt him down like a human being, aren"t you? Read him his rights when you catch him, that sort of thing?"
Lou lowered his head. "Something like that."
"He tried to kill my sister. He"s not a human being."
"I know that."
"Know this, too." She took the crossbow from his hands as they wheeled her sister out the door. "You can protect him all you want. But if he tries to get near Morgan again, I"ll kill him myself. And I won"t let anyone stop me. Not even you."
Then she turned away, only to b.u.mp into Stiles. He nodded as if in approval and tucked a business card into her hand. "My cell phone number. You"re the only one seeing things clearly here. You might need me."
She shoved him aside and headed out the door after the paramedics, yanking a jacket off a hook on the way and draping it over her arm to conceal the weapon. She crammed Stiles" card into her jeans pocket. At the last moment she turned, glanced at Lydia. "You and David can follow in the car, all right? I want to stay with her, in the ambulance."
Lydia looked stunned, then relieved, as she smiled wetly and nodded. "We"ll be right behind you."
Max faced forward again, started to leave. Halfway to the ambulance, she stopped. "Lou?"
He was there, only a few paces behind her. She"d felt him following. "Be careful, okay? Don"t turn your back on that snake Stiles for a second. Or on Dante, either."
"Didn"t plan to."
She turned her head, looked him in the eyes. She hated him for letting that animal go. No, she didn"t. Not really.
"Ma"am?"
Max pulled her eyes away, turned toward the paramedic who"d called her. He stood holding the ambulance doors open.
"We have to go, ma"am."
Nodding, she hurried to the vehicle and climbed inside.
Lou watched her go, feeling like pond slime. He had let her down. That was betrayal he had seen in her eyes. She had expected him to take her side, avenge her sister. h.e.l.l, part of him had wanted to, but you didn"t spend twenty years as a cop and not a.s.similate the training. It was who he was, a part of him. Something about Stiles wasn"t right. Something about Dante didn"t fit the profile Stiles had laid out. Something was off, he felt it right to his toes, and G.o.ddammit, his gut was telling him the monster was the good guy in all this.
It made no sense, but there it was.
As the ambulance drove out of sight, David and Lydia following close behind it in Sumner"s Mercedes, Lou turned to go back inside.
But naturally, when he got there, Stiles was long gone.
Chapter 23.
*Under normal circ.u.mstances Dante would have been able to travel far faster on foot. But tonight he needed a car. So rather than struggling into some secluded place to rest, he limped weakly into the town and along the sidewalks, scanning the parked vehicles for dangling sets of keys. The other man"s belt was still tied tight around his thigh, but every step he took caused blood to ooze from the wound. His jeans were soaked in it, and he was leaving an obvious trail, a crimson strand. The pain was blinding.
And fate seemed to be conspiring against him, because every car in the area was locked. Not a key in sight. In all his years he"d never mastered the art of car theft, and he regretted it now. If he survived this, it was a skill he would strive to learn.
Headlights shone in his eyes, and Dante instinctively backed into the shadowy recesses of a doorway. The car, a white Ford Mustang, pulled into an empty parking s.p.a.ce, its radio blasting. Then it went silent and the lights died.
Closing his eyes, Dante focused his mind, casting a wide net and searching, sifting a thousand mental voices for those near him, then those nearer, and nearer still, quickly homing in on the driver. The young man was happily drunk and humming to himself, thinking about the girl in the pa.s.senger seat and how willing she was. Thinking about how many times he could do her before the booze he"d imbibed put him to sleep and reminding himself not to drink any more tonight so he could make the most of her.
Dante crept into his mind as silently as a burglar, and every time his thoughts strayed toward the keys in the ignition, Dante distracted him by gently nudging his mind back to thoughts of booze and s.e.x and the woman in his car beside him. It wasn"t difficult at all when they were drunk.
Within moments the young man was out of the car, laughing as he came around it, slung an arm around the girl and walked unevenly into one of the buildings that lined the street. Dante sensed them going up the stairs to the apartment above a shop. He let them get inside before he withdrew from the young man"s mind. By then he was breathless, such a simple use of energy d.a.m.n near draining him.
Pushing himself upright, he walked, dragging his wounded leg now. He made his way to the car and saw with relief that the keys were in the ignition. Yanking the door open, he got in, started the engine and drove away.
He needed blood, and he needed st.i.tching, to keep himself from bleeding out before the day sleep could heal him. "Fina had abandoned him. Though the way she saw it, he had no doubt abandoned her first. He had to get to Belinda, the woman he kept in Bangor.
It took an hour to get to her place. Her apartment i He had a keycard that let him in, and he made his way to the elevators, all without being seen by anyone. The place was dark and nearly silent this time of the night. Finally he reached her floor. Thank G.o.d. He wasn"t going to last much longer.
He fell against her door, thumping weakly with a fist. When she didn"t answer, he opened it and stumbled inside.
Belinda lay across the sofa. She wore red and welcomed him with sightless eyes. No. She wasn"t wearing anything at all. Her wrists were laid open. Blood had spattered over the walls, hit the ceiling in places, and soaked into the carpet and the sofa. Her body was covered in it. And it was old blood. Dead blood. Wasted.
"Did you think I didn"t know about her, Dante?"
Dante spun, nearly falling over at the sudden movement.
Stiles stood there, grinning at him with that twisted mockery of a smile. "I couldn"t leave your little human blood bank alive. You needed her too much. I knew you"d come here tonight."
"She was an innocent. G.o.d, you heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Dante tried to lunge forward but slumped instead, catching himself on a table then standing there, bowed, weakening.
"The end justifies the means, though. What you don"t know is that I"ve reorganized some of the men who used to work for the DPI. Oh, there aren"t many of us. Only a handful. Survivors of that famous vampire uprising in White Plains."
Dante shook his head. "The government-"
"Has nothing to do with us. We"re privately funded. Your kind should be careful who they feed on, Dante. Rich men like vengeance, and they can afford to buy it."
Panting, Dante managed to keep his head up, though it wanted to fall. "Glorified hit men," he muttered.
"Vampire hunters. When we aren"t being paid, we do it... just for fun." Stiles stepped inside, and three other men came in behind him, carrying weapons. One had a gun, one a crossbow, one a stake. Dante closed his eyes at the cliche of the third weapon, shook his head. "I see you have a rookie."
Stiles laughed. It was a low, honestly amused sound, yet dangerous at the same time. "It"s good that you can joke at a time like this," he said at length. "No, Dante, that"s no rookie. The stake has been treated with a new chemical we think will do your kind in. But, of course, we won"t know until we test it." Coming closer, he lifted Dante"s chin. "Guess who gets to be our guinea pig?"
Dante put all the power he still had into the fist he drove into Stiles" belly. Stiles doubled over, staggering backward, and the other three rushed forward.
"Hold it right there."
Lou Malone, the mortal cop, stood in the doorway with his handgun drawn, and the men in the room went still.
"Drop "em!" Lou shouted.
Weapons clattered to the floor.
"Up against the far wall. Come on, move it. Face in. That"s it," he said as he herded them. "Hands behind your heads. Feet apart, forehead to the wall. That"s better."
He jerked his head at Dante. Nodding, Dante made his way toward the door, but on the way he paused, dropping to one knee to pick up the wooden stake. As soon as he closed his hand around the wood, his skin began to burn, and he dropped it fast, clutching his wrist and staring in shock at the smoke curling from his seared palm. Struggling to his feet, he staggered into the hallway.
"I"ve got a car outside," Lou said. "Wait in it, and keep it running. I"ll be out in a sec." Lou grabbed a telephone, dialed 9-1-1.
Dante went to wait in the car.
Lou clocked the men on the head with the b.u.t.t of his revolver. Then he ran the chain of his handcuffs under an old iron radiator and put the cuffs on two of them. He locked the door and left them there, figuring that ought to hold them until the local cops arrived. They would be detained for at least a little while. Long enough for him to get his preternatural prisoner tucked away safe and sound.
He figured he would have another leg of that chase on his hands, but at least now he wouldn"t have Stiles mucking up the works. So he was surprised to get back to his car to find Dante slumped inside. He couldn"t believe the vampire hadn"t run again.
He got in, drove the car back to the hotel in Easton, and used the rear entrance to get the vampire in and up to the suite. Dante came around slightly as Lou hauled him bodily into the hotel, straight to the elevator and up to their floor. Inside, he took the groggy vampire straight to the bathroom and set him on the floor with his back against the wall.
Dante was still. s.h.i.t. Maybe he was already dead. Lou was d.a.m.ned if he knew how to tell. Did you check for a pulse? Did a vampire even have a pulse?
He found some scissors, a needle and some thread in Lydia"s makeup bag. Okay. So he could at least st.i.tch the guy up. The d.a.m.n blood was still leaking out of him, making a puddle on the bathroom floor.
Using the scissors, Lou sliced away the jeans from just below the makeshift tourniquet. He peeled the blood-soaked denim away, tossing it into the tub. Then he glanced from the slick red length of Dante"s leg to the needle and thread sitting on the counter. "s.h.i.t."
He got up and went into the living room part of the suite, opened the little mini-bar and took out two bottles. Whiskey and vodka. Twisting the cap off the whiskey, he tipped it to his own lips and drank it down.
Releasing a breath, he twisted the cap off the vodka, carried it back into the bathroom, and poured some of it over the wound in the front of the vampire"s thigh. It rinsed the blood away, and Dante groaned in pain. When Lou looked at him, his eyes were open.
"I was beginning to think you were dead."
"What the h.e.l.l are you doing to me?"
"Correct me if I"m wrong, but I"m thinking this thing"s gonna bleed to the last drop. I a.s.sume that"s bad, even for a vampire."
Closing his eyes, Dante nodded. "Especially for a vampire."
"Thought so." Lou took the needle. It had a strand of black thread in it, and he poured a little vodka over it.
"That"s not necessary," Dante said. "I"m not going to get an infection."
"You don"t say." Shrugging, Lou leaned over the wound. "Brace yourself." He poked the needle through, surprised as h.e.l.l by the howl of pain. "h.e.l.l, even I wouldn"t yell like that. I thought you were tough."