Chapter Four

“I’ll join you.”

His sudden agreement startled me, and the flare of amusement in his black eyes was not reassuring.

“Good! Good.” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, though my plate-wide eyes probably gave me away. “Our next step—”

“Stand back!” His command was underscored by a shing of metal as he shoved me to one side. Gliding in front of me, he stood in easy ready stance—with a talwar in his hand.

What the…? A talwar, or my talwar? I reached for my swords, drew Joyce…and flailed behind my head for Shredder. Gone.

“What the actual fuc—”

“Back off,” he ordered again, though not at me.

I leaned out to see five vampires in mottled facial armor. Adrenaline goosed me. They stalked hand-to-shoulder toward us like a fangy SWAT team. They even wore matching black fatigues with blue chest patches. All that was missing was the tactical shields.

I’d fought more than one vampire before, though nothing much over three by myself. Me against five? I calculated my odds of coming out of this alive and swallowed a rock of anxiety.

Oh, sure, Ryker held Shredder with an easy confidence. And he’d been handy enough batting away that rogue’s head. I had no idea if he could actually fight, though.

In fact, he wasn’t the vampire hunter, I was. It was my job to protect him.

Firming my grip on Joyce, I strode around Ryker and faced the vampires. “If you’re looking for trouble, you’ve found it.”

“That’s your best line?” Ryker murmured.

“Got a better one?” I threw back.

“This.” He charged around me and hit the two monsters in front with a vigorous slash of the talwar across both their throats.

Idiot. Ryker was fast, but vamps were inhuman. Both barely flinched.

I leaped forward to rescue him.

Suckers are fast. Necks already healing, they grabbed my ally. By the time I reached him, four vamps held a struggling Ryker for the fifth to assault his neck.

“Are you insane?” I whirled Joyce into the two sets of wrists holding Ryker’s left arm. He dislodged the other two, one with a stunner of a left-handed punch, the other with a knee to nuts.

“Insane? Are you?” A tiny smile sparkled in his eyes. He was enjoying this, the ass. “Why didn’t you run for help?”

“Who’s the vampire hunter here?” I snapped. Bad enough he’d ignored my help; did he have to be so charming doing it? “Follow my lead.”

A vampire lunged for me, a flash of gold bar showing on his blue patch. I stabbed at him with Joyce, slapping a hand to my vest to draw my dagger Angel—hitting the forgotten test tube of Alexis’s vampire dissolving stuff instead. I lost track of the fight for half a second.

Ryker slashed at the vamp the same moment I’d stabbed. We hit blades with a force that made my teeth jar together.

“Don’t get in my way!” We yelled it at each other.

The gold-bar monster grabbed my throat. I froze, breath rasping in my trachea. His hand clamped my neck armor, so I wasn’t immediately dead, but once he peeled it away, my tasty carotid was his for the taking.

Last minute, Ryker slashed the vamp’s forearm, severing everything the monster needed to hold me. Clawed fingers fell from my neck. Ryker was already attacking another monster with precise, sweeping cuts of my talwar.

Graceful, deadly. His skill a thing of beauty. My breath stopped the barest instant.

“You may know vampires,” he said between slashes. “I know the king. If we work together…”

Together. I got an unwanted burst of pleasure at that.

“I lead,” he finished.

“You?” Pleasure exploded into annoyance. I slapped Joyce into her sheath, freeing up my hands for the test tube. I popped out the cork. “How much vampire tracking have you done?”

Cut arm dangling, Mr. Gold-Bar gave up subtle and lunged at me fangs first. Feinting back, I tossed a couple drops of serum into his terrifying maw. They splashed in.

Gold-bar swallowed in surprise. Ryker raised a questioning brow an instant before he got distracted by a beefy vampire’s attack. I capped the tube, hoping the stuff did its thing even if the vampire wasn’t “mostly dead.”

The gold-bar sucker swallowed again—and clapped his good arm over his midsection. Alexis’s serum was evidently going to give him a good case of indigestion.

“The king isn’t your average vampire.” Ryker wrenched on the talwar, which he’d managed to get stuck in the beefy sucker’s throat. “A little help here?” Mr. I-Lead do-si-doed with the vamp, the blade not moving an inch. With a roar, the vampire raised claws to strike.

“Oh, now you need me.” I was already in motion to help him, drawing Joyce.

A pair of vampires lunged for me—or where I’d been. They smacked behind me like a couple of Stooges.

“I don’t need anyone.” Ryker snaked a long arm out the moment I was within reach—and snatched a stake from my fringe. “But I could use this.”

I jerked back. “That won’t do you any good!” Again, the sudden change twisted up the attacking pair, who bonked heads and reeled around for a moment. “Not without a sledgehammer to pound it through supernaturally hard bone.”

“Preternatural.” Ryker reared back then rammed the stake into the beefy monster’s breast, nearly to the hilt.

“What…?”

The vamp’s eyes went wide. I’m sure mine were as round. Ryker wasn’t simply bench-press strong, he was warhead strong. My lips parted as a delicious heat plumed inside me.

Doused when he said, “Their strength is preternatural. Not supernatural.”

“Do you have to work hard to be this annoying?”

He twinkled a smile at me. “Just naturally talented.”

Despite myself, a laugh bubbled up. I turned away before he could see it.

It put me line of sight with Gold-Bar. His aggression and facial armor had melted into distress. His skin was a sickly green. The other vamps paused to stare.

The staked vamp was trying to pluck out the wood, driven too deep to reach. He staggered back, falling into his two cronies who dropped their stares to catch him.

Ryker shot me a smug grin. “The score is one to one, Ms. Vampire Hunter. Three to go. Your serve.”

The last blue-badge attacked me.

“This isn’t a game.” In my exasperation, I spun as hard as I could with Joyce at neck level. She chopped through the blue-badge like a guillotine. His head fell from his shoulders. “And it’s two to go.”

“No, none to go.”

I snorted a laugh. He’d argue with a rock.

But he was right. The remaining pair of blue-badges carted off the headless and staked vampires, scooping up the head on the way. The gold-barred one I’d treated to a taste of serum stumbled along after, scrubbing several times into the wall of a nearby building like a drunken moth. His exposed skin was getting distinctly lumpy.

Alexis would want to know the vamp’s reactions to the serum. Mentally, I recorded it. Sick, green, lumpy. She’d probably have more syllables when I told her.

Ryker, at his elegant ease, began to wipe Shredder using the bottom of his sweater, as gracefully as if he was polishing a museum piece with a microfiber cloth instead of cleaning blood with his shirt. “Well, that was fun.”

His muscles bulged and slid under his thin knit as he worked. My rapt attention was punctuated by a hot horde of fluttering butterflies invading my stomach, not unlike taking a solid kick to the gut.

Good gauntlets of grief. My fascination with him had gotten worse.

I turned anger on my attraction like a sword. We were lucky to be alive, and he treated this like a game? “Don’t you ever…” I poked a finger at him to underscore the word. “Don’t ever grab my weapons like that. If you hadn’t taken my talwar, I’d have been able to fight two-handed—”

“And how would I fight, without a weapon?” One caustic brow rose.

“Exactly my point! You’re a civilian. You don’t carry a weapon, you don’t fight.” How could I protect a man who dashed into the middle of trouble?

“I did well enough,” he said stiffly.

“You got in my way!” Not exactly true, but I was on a roll. I waved Joyce like I was swatting flies. “You weren’t the only fighter out here, or even the best.”

“Not the best…? Excuse me, I had the first two started.” He reversed the talwar, holding the disc hilt toward me, waggling it as if he was miffed. “When who came barging into my fight?”

“Barge?” I snatched Shredder from him and rammed the blade into its scabbard. The four escaping bloodsuckers turned the corner, Gold-Bar lagging far behind. “I didn’t barge, I rescued you—”

“You’re brash and instinctive, when what’s needed is cool and calculating—”

“What we need is a real vampire hunter—”

“No, what we need is a way to find the king.”

I sucked in a breath to release a scalding retort when that sank in. My anger popped, deflated. Damn it, he was right. As I sheathed Joyce, I managed, “At least we agree on something.” And agreeing was nicer than arguing. “What do you have to contribute?”

“Me?” His head tilted, considering me. “You blew your wad on the teasers, didn’t you? You don’t have anything else to share.”

Only Rey could see through me so easily. I snapped, “Listen, bubby, maybe not, but I can get more. I will get more. So, dish.”

“Bubby?” His lips twitched, as if he was trying not to smile. “Do I look like a ‘bubby’?”

No, he looked like a “can I lick you now?”

At that moment, Gold-Bar made a ralphing sound, leaned his good hand against a building, and went all wobbly. Not like weak kneed.

Like turning into a jelly mold of himself.

A moment later, he collapsed into liquid, hitting the sidewalk with a splash.

Note to Alexis. Green, lumpy, disintegrate.

But here was an opportunity marked “One-up Ryker.” “That.” I pointed at the puddle that had been Gold-Bar. “I can bring that to the table.”

He raised both brows in comment. The height of devilish black arch said that, at last, he was impressed.

“Your turn,” I growled. “Dish.”

He gave a negligent shrug. The movement called attention to how really broad his shoulders were, leaving me short of breath for an instant.

“Honestly? I don’t have that much, though I’ve floated a few lines in the water. Like you, I expect to get more information, but it will take time. Time I’m not sure Elias has.”

“Elias?”

“The king. Kai Elias.” He paused, head cocked, examining me. “You don’t even know his name. Why are you searching for him?”

“Hunting, not searching. And I know enough. The king is a giant, heals anything, has impenetrable skin, faceplate like a Samurai mask, and an ego like Mt. Rushmore. I just wouldn’t have made him as an ‘Elias.’ An Alucard, maybe, or a Louis de Pointe. Oh, well, at least he’s not a Bob.” I laid on the flat Midwest, going for a full-on Baaahb.

Ryker rewarded me with a smile, catapulting merely handsome into painfully attractive. Painful, as in, all my insides tightened like a wringer.

Then his smile ebbed. “I can share this. Elias’s failsafe message triggered.” He explained their arrangement and the king’s apocryphal last message.

“You sound like two old married people.” I was torn. On the one hand, I admired Ryker’s devotion to his friend. But friends with a vampire? The vile creatures who’d killed my parents before my eyes? Who’d abused Rey?

Who’d ripped my life apart?

Attraction be damned. The friend of my enemy is my enemy. I stabbed myself with that thought, jaw clenched so hard teeth almost cracked. I couldn’t let Ryker under my skin, no matter how pretty the package.

He went on. “I don’t think he’s in serious trouble, yet I’m worried.”

The normally arrogant black brows were wrinkled, and he ran a jerky hand through his hair. Immediately I wanted to soothe him, despite my self-pep-talk. “The king I met was pretty damned untouchable.”

“He is, usually.” His jaw worked, as if he was chewing on something unpalatable. “This whole situation bothers me. It’s why I’ve agreed to work with you. If you get any information—”

“Same goes, bubby.”

His mouth pressed tight. “You’ll get it.”

“I’d better.”

We exchanged phone numbers, agreeing to text when either of us got a new lead, and parted.

I went home, booted up my laptop, and logged into TOR. I wasn’t a dark net user, but my vampire chat room was exclusive and anonymous, and we all wanted it to stay that way.

I posted an update on our board, asking for further info in my search for the king. Answers would come an hour or days from now, so I shut it down then called my sister.

“Kat…?” She sounded groggy. “Do you know what time it is?”

“I’m checking that you made it home safe.”

A breath of air came over the phone, a sister’s tribulation. “Yes. One small incident.”

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’ll tell you all about it—the next time you don’t call in the middle of the night.”

She hung up as I stuttered an embarrassed apology. I worked off my embarrassment cleaning Joyce, Shredder, and Angel. Then, with nothing more to do, I went to bed.

…

Ryker tested the air for danger as Kat stalked off, in case he had to dash in to protect her. Everything was normal, so he started off in the other direction, mulling over the ghastly collapse of the gold-bar-badged vampire. Anything a vampire ingested by mouth went directly into the bloodstream. Younglings sometimes swallowed silver emulsion or garlic juice. They had a very unpleasant time of it.

Kat’s ruby liquid completely eclipsed those toxins. Such terrifying, concentrated destructive power—though not enough to breach his ancient defenses. Probably. Hopefully.

His phone dinged. Kat?

Anticipation surged. He pulled the phone from his pocket, surprised at his own eagerness.

MC POLICE flashed across the top notifications area. With a grunt of disappointment, he touched it to bring up the message, chastising himself for behaving like a boy with his first steady girlfriend.

Subject: Mandatory Briefing. To Officer Keydew, from dispatch. Briefing scheduled re: missing VIP Kai Elias. For all shift personnel at six a.m.

Ah. His dangling line had a nibble. His spirits revived.

Nearly two a.m. now. While he waited, he might as well suit up as Officer Keydew and search for Elias in the guise of putting in the rest of his nine-to-six shift. He slipped into the nearest dark shadow to change.

Emerging as Officer Keydew, he moseyed along on his beat. He’d been embedded in Meiers Corners for several weeks now, ever since his spy network uncovered indicators that the mastermind stealing ancient lives would show up here next. Monitoring the situation, he’d only left briefly when Elias, who would’ve spotted him in a heartbeat despite his disguise, was due to come to town.

Never suspecting Elias, omniscient, invincible Elias, might be the target.

A little creative hacking had gotten Ryker onto the police force, but when he played a role, he played it right. Strolling along, he was all Keydew, officer of the law.

Normally his shift was uneventful—Meiers Corners had the harshest penal system in the world: if you were arrested, no matter your age, the police called your parents.

Tonight proved irritatingly full.

Dispatch called him to capture a man claiming to be Vlad Dracula, escaped from the local mental health hospital. When Ryker took him into custody, Vlad surprised him by baring tiny fangs, showing himself a real vampire, though not Dracula. As Keydew, Ryker pretended ignorance of vampires, but annoyance with the youngster stung him into unleashing his own fangs in return. In Keydew’s face, they must’ve been horrendously long. A sheet-white Vlad went willingly back to the hospital, where Ryker hypnotized him into forgetting what had happened.

Then Bruno Braun, who ran Meiers Corners’ survivalist store, was testing a new product, a shoulder-launched missile, in Settler’s Square park. He managed to set fire to the three-story fir the city used as a municipal Christmas tree. He’d brought a fire extinguisher but couldn’t get high enough. Ryker climbed onto the bearish man’s shoulders with the extinguisher and managed to put out the blaze before it did any real damage.

A teen in a ski mask tried to rob cash and beer from the AllRighty-AllNighty, the convenience store on Ninth and Eisenhower. Before the kid got away with his spoils, the owner insisted on carding him—and the boy complied. Only in Meiers Corners. Armed with his address, Ryker caught the perp burping outside his home and woke his parents. Ryker’s ears still rang with the lecture they’d given both of them.

By the time he’d extracted himself from that, he was late for the departmental meeting and on the opposite end of town. As the sky brightened with predawn, he kicked into a vampire run, nearly forty mph.

Optimism surged. Soon he’d have the information to start searching for his friend.

Without needing Kat.

His feet slowed. He’d promised to share information with her, yet once he’d had the idea, it wouldn’t go away. Not only because she complicated his life.

Involving her, if something was truly wrong, would put her in danger. Besides, she’d just get in the way. He could move faster without her.

Excuses, but he’d been a solo act for all his life. By the time he reached the police station on First and Adams, he’d convinced himself it would be better for both of them that he go it alone as usual.

He even almost believed it.