Chasing Shadows

Eighteen

“Where’s Mark?” Juliette asked, wiping at the tears on her face.

I wiped my own tears away. “I don’t know. He wasn’t in bed when I woke up,” I replied. “I’ll go see if he’s downstairs.”

She nodded and I rose. Peeking in my room, I noticed Moe and Cissy were gone, and so I figured he was outside with them. Downstairs I saw in the kitchen that Mark had indeed fed them, and a glance out the back window showed me that they were in their kennel. A glance out the side window, however, showed me that my truck was gone, which meant Mark wasn’t even on the premises.

This didn’t concern me right away. Although I had already come to expect him to let me know his comings and goings, he was obviously not required to. Perhaps he had gone to check on his parents, or even the horses and Angus, and he just hadn’t wanted to wake me. I went for the phone and picked it up off the base, dialing Harry’s number.

He answered on the third ring. “Morning, Saphrona. You coming to see your animals today?”

Well, that answered my question. Still, I asked him, “So Mark hasn’t been by there today?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” Harry replied. “I just came in from feeding all the animals, including yours. No sign of him. Why, is something wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong. Just that my truck is gone. His was stolen yesterday from the mall that his sister drove it to.”

“Well there ya go. He probably just went to talk to the police again.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. He probably just didn’t want to wake me unnecessarily. Thanks, Harry. I’ll come by later today to see to my animals, and change that dressing on Angus,” I said.

“Well, like I said, I just gave ‘em their breakfast, so you go ahead and take your time,” Harry told me.

“Alright. Thanks again.” After hanging up, I realized I was frowning. It just didn’t feel…right…that Mark had left without telling me where he was going. I looked at the front of the fridge and didn’t see a note under any of the magnets. I went back into the living room and didn’t see anything on the end tables or the coffee table so I dashed into the office, finding nothing there, either—I even turned on the computer to see if he’d typed a note and left it on there. Running back upstairs to my room, I found no note on either bedside table or the dresser.

There was nothing from Mark.

Now I was definitely growing concerned.

“Saphrona?” Juliette called.

I walked out of the bedroom and turned into her room. “Yeah?” I asked.

“Is everything alright? Did you find Mark?”

I wanted to tell her yes. I didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily. But I was worried myself, and Juliette was no fool. She had to know just from my expression that something was amiss.

I shook my head. “No,” I told her. “He fed the dogs and put them outside, and when I saw that my truck was gone I thought maybe he was down taking care of the horses and Angus, but Harry said he hasn’t seen him. And he didn’t leave a note anywhere.”

“Call my parents. Maybe he’s checking on them,” she suggested.

Her tone was light, but I could tell she was already concerned. Still, I followed her suggestion and walked into my room again. Picking up the phone on the bedside table, I dialed the Singletons’ home phone number from memory. Monica picked it up on the second ring.

“Good morning, Singleton residence,” she greeted me formally.

“Mrs. Singleton, it’s Saphrona Caldwell,” I said.

“Oh, hello! I didn’t recognize the number, even though I suppose I should have since Juliette called me from there the other day,” Mark’s stepmother said to me. “How is Juliette doing?”

I smiled a little in spite of my concern. “Very well, I believe. Lochlan brought in some more morphine to help control her pain, and something else to keep her from dehydrating. I think she slept most of the night, but she was awake when I checked on her this morning.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” Monica exclaimed, her relief carrying over the phone line. “I’m so happy to hear that. Dan will want to speak to her, of course, and give her a piece of his mind for making me worry.”

“How did he handle things last night when he came out of the trance?” I asked.

“Oh, he came out of it on the way home. Thought he had dozed off in the car,” she told me. “I told him that I’d just gotten a call from Juliette and that she had been talking to the Columbus police because Mark’s truck had been stolen. Has he reported that yet, by the way?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “We decided last night to wait until Juliette woke up so we could see if she remembered anything about what happened to her before we did that, in case she parked it somewhere before she was jumped and she was on camera.”

“Oh, well certainly that makes sense. Did you talk to her at all? Did…did she remember anything?”

Her voice was quiet as she said the last words, and I hated to have to crush the poor woman. I decided that the details weren’t my place to say, so I only gave her a rough approximation. “She had just got out in the parking garage at the Easton Mall when she was jumped. They knocked her out and took her somewhere, she didn’t know where, and then they abused her pretty badly. She remembers almost everything, except being brought back here. She didn’t say, but she must have passed out at some point because she talked about what they did to her, and then she woke up here, and that’s all she remembers.”

I heard Monica’s breath hitch. “What did they do to my baby girl?” she asked quietly.

I sighed. “I think I will let Juliette tell you about it, if she chooses to. She may find it difficult, given that you’re her mother. But suffice it to say it was plenty bad enough, and the vampires who did this won’t live long after we find them. I promise you that.”

She said nothing at first after I made that declaration, and then she said, “Good.”

I gave her another moment to process that before I finally got into the real reason I had called. “Listen, Mrs. Singleton—”

“Oh, call me Monica, please,” she interrupted. “Mrs. Singleton seems rather formal, and I know that we’ll be more than mere acquaintances sometime in the near future.”

“Alright then, Monica—have you seen or heard from Mark today?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

That was the same thing Harry had said to me earlier: Is something wrong? I tried not to worry but it was hard not to when both Mark and my truck were gone without a trace.

Especially after his sister had been kidnapped, beaten, and tortured for hours on end just the day before.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said carefully, not wanting to alarm her. “He’s just not here right now, and he didn’t leave a note of any kind telling where he was going. I’m sure he just decided not to wait to go to the police when he got up, and he didn’t think to leave a note.”

“I suppose that’s possible, but it’s really not like Mark not to leave a note,” Monica said. “Have you checked your cell phone? Maybe he thought about it after he left the house and sent you a text.”

“No I haven’t, hold on a moment,” I said, grabbing my cell phone out of the nightstand drawer. I waited the twenty seconds it took to boot up with growing impatience, and when the screen finally said it was ready, I keyed in my password, and waited another thirty seconds. When I didn’t hear the tell-tale beep that notified me of waiting messages, I began to grow seriously concerned.

“Damn,” I muttered. “He hasn’t left me a message. I’m going to dial his cell.”

Monica agreed. “Please do—now I’m getting worried about him.”

I opened up the dialer function on my phone and tapped the speed dial for Mark’s cell phone, holding my cell to one ear and the houseline handset to my opposite shoulder.

My heart stopped for a beat when I heard the trilling ring of Mark’s cell phone coming from the nightstand on the other side of the bed.

I nearly dropped both phones as I leapt across the bed and yanked the drawer to the end of its track. There was the offending cell phone, flashing and ringing, and I stared down at it in horror.

My rushing around must have woken Lochlan, or perhaps Juliette had, because that’s how he found me several seconds later, with Monica yelling through the telephone for my attention. I knew I looked at my brother with dread in my expression as I finally raised the phone to my ear and forced myself to say, “His cell phone is still here. Mark…

“…has disappeared.”



*****



Lochlan immediately raced downstairs and outside, returning seconds later to say, “I followed his scent trail outside. It ends where your truck was parked.”

I forced myself not to panic. “There has to be a logical explanation for this. Monica, I will call you when I track him down.”

“Please do,” she repeated, and after saying goodbye to each other we hung up.

I looked at Lochlan. “His mother said it’s not like him to not leave a note. And I personally know it’s not like him to go anywhere without his cell phone—I can’t believe I didn’t see it in here earlier,” I said, ending the call to Mark’s cell.

“Saphrona, try to remain calm, and think. Where would he go?” Loch asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I called down to Harry’s and he said he hasn’t seen him. I suppose he could have gone to the store, or even the police station, but he agreed not to do that until he’d talked to Juliette.”

My brother stepped closer to me. “Did you look at his phone?” he asked, picking it up out of the drawer.

I reached across the bed and returned the house phone to its cradle, then slipped my own cell phone into my jeans pocket and took Mark’s phone from Lochlan. I flipped it open, grateful that, unlike mine, his phone was not password protected.

Or had he left it that way on purpose just this morning? I wondered as I pressed the menu button and checked his incoming call list. There was nothing there since last night, but I did find a text message from Juliette’s cell phone time-stamped for just two hours ago. I knew damn well that Juliette hadn’t even been given her clothes back, let alone her phone or her purse or anything that had been in it, so I opened the text.

Easton Mall parking garage, level 2B, 7 a.m. Come alone.

My eyes darted to the clock in the upper right corner of the screen, and saw that the current time was just turning to 8:00.

“Oh God, Loch,” I said, beginning to tremble. “He must have woken early and read this, and then left right after. That means he’s been gone at least an hour and a half and who knows what the hell they’re doing to him!”

My voice had risen in pitch with each word, until I was shouting. Lochlan took Mark’s cell phone from my hand and read the text for himself. He then reached for me and gathered me into his arms, holding me for a moment. “Try to stay calm, sister. You won’t be able to help him if you’re not thinking clearly,” he said.

“He’s right.”

I gasped and Lochlan turned sharply at the sound of Juliette’s voice. She was standing in the doorway of my bedroom wrapped up in the blanket from the bed.

“What the devil are you doing out of bed? And how did you manage to get your I.V. out?” Loch demanded.

She raised an eyebrow. “My mother is a nurse, Vampire Ken. I know how to manage an I.V.”

He managed to look momentarily pleased by the moniker she had just used. Crossing his arms he looked at her sternly, saying, “That doesn’t explain why you’re out of bed, young lady.”

Juliette met his gaze. “I heard Saphrona’s voice. Something’s happened to my brother—and don’t you dare try to tell me it’s nothing, because I am far from stupid.”

“He got a text at six this morning from your cell phone,” I said before Lochlan could speak. “It told him to come alone to the parking garage at Easton, level 2B.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s where I parked his truck. Damn it, he had to know it was a trap!”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. “I know that. And I’m sure Mark knew that too, and that’s why he left his phone here for me to find.”

“Instead of being smart and waking us so we could go with him? What the hell was my stupid brother thinking?” Juliette wondered angrily.

“He may not have known he could rouse you,” Lochlan said. “And it’s not like you’d be going anywhere even if he could have.”

She afforded Lochlan a narrow-eyed gaze. “And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that after my sister gets you something proper to wear, you’re going back to bed,” Lochan replied. “You’ve just been through a very traumatic ordeal. Your body needs time to rest and recuperate.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” she protested, shaking her head with each “no” and stepping further into the room. Were she not wrapped in the blanket, I had no doubt her hands would be fisted on her hips. “Don’t you think for a second that I’m not going to help you go looking for my brother. He is my brother, bloodsucker, and I will help him.”

“I don’t think you’re going back to bed, Juliette,” he countered, “I know you are. Doctor’s orders. You’re in no condition to run off playing the hero dog.”

“Oh really?” she said, sneering mildly as she threw the blanket off her shoulders, dropping down to the floor as she shifted into her Siberian form and looking up at him pointedly with those ice blue eyes of hers.

“So you can change form, so what? Doesn’t mean you’re in any condition to fight,” Loch replied, planting his hands at his waist.

Juliette huffed and shifted back to human form. While still on her knees she reached for the blanket, wrapping it around herself again as she stood up.

“Look, buddy—you have no control over me. You’re not my brother, my father, or my imprint, not that any of those titles would grant you the right to tell me what to do, either. And even if you did get to play doctor last night, we’re not in a hospital, and even if we were, I could still leave of my own free will against medical advice, and you’d have no choice but to let me. Now, are we going to continue to waste time standing here arguing, or are we going to go look for Mark, hmm?”

Her gaze roamed between the two of us, and each time she looked at me, I knew she was seeking support. Truth was, I agreed with Lochlan: I didn’t think she was in any condition to fight, even if she could change her shape. I also realized the futility of trying to dissuade her, but I knew I had to try.

“Juliette, based on what you told me a little while ago, you haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast yesterday,” I said slowly. “Where are you going to get the energy to maintain your animal form, let alone fight two or more vampires?”

She huffed. “I’ll find it somewhere, don’t you worry. Now shouldn’t we be piling into that tank of a car Lochlan drives and getting our asses out of here?”

In no doubt an effort to make sure we didn’t try to leave without her, Juliette turned and marched purposefully down the short hall to the stairs, which she descended with the blanket trailing behind her.

I looked at Lochlan. “Unless you can do a Vulcan Nerve Pinch, pal, I don’t see how we’re going to leave her behind,” I said, following after Juliette.

Lochlan threw up his hands in surrender, groaning in frustration. “I just don’t want to see her get hurt again,” he said as he walked behind me down to the first floor.

“I don’t either, Loch, but since I have no way of forcing her to stay behind…” I said, my words trailing off because I really didn’t know what else to say.

As we were walking into the kitchen, Juliette was letting Moe and Cissy into the house, and she’d grabbed a bagel out of the bag on the counter. When she’d come into the kitchen again, she walked over to the refrigerator and reached into it, grabbing the milk and chugging it down, leaving Lochlan and I to stand staring openly. She finished off the last half gallon and tossed the empty jug into the kitchen sink, then reached into the fridge again for the remaining two bottles of blood that she’d brought up from the freezer the day before.

Handing one each to Lochlan and I, she said, “Drink up, kids. You’re going to need it.”

I said nothing at first as I took the bottle from her and unscrewed the cap, taking a long swig. Lochlan did the same, though he didn’t stop for breath like I did—he just kept chugging. “You realize that the chances of finding anything in the parking garage are moot, right?” I said before taking another long drink. “It’s been over an hour since he was supposed to meet them there.”

Juliette reluctantly nodded agreement. “I know. So what are we going to do?”

Loch finished off his bottle of blood as I was chugging mine. “Ah, Chateau de Bovine, a fine 2009 vintage,” he joked as he carried the bottle to the sink. Turning to Juliette he said, “I suspect we are going to have to hope that enough of your brother’s blood remains in Saphrona’s body that she can make use of the blood blond drinking from him created—shouldn’t be a problem, given she’s fed from him almost every day since they met.”

She glanced between us. “But what if there’s not enough that she can use it to locate him?” she wanted to know. “Then what?”

I finished off my bottle and tossed it to my brother, who caught it effortlessly. “Then we pray that the strength of our pair-bond leads us to him. Otherwise, we have no choice but to wait and see if those two vampires or whoever they’re working for calls with some kind of ransom or other demand.”

I didn’t mention the other possibility—that we waited for them to drop his dead body at the end of the driveway like they had with her. Because I knew without a doubt that the point of drawing Mark out was so that they could kill him for his blood, and I refused to consider that outcome.



*****



After Lochlan and I had finished the two bottles of blood (during which time Juliette had wolfed down the last three bagels—I’d never seen another woman eat that fast), I took Juliette back upstairs to get her some clothes to wear, noting that it was the third time in less than a week I’d had to provide for her from my meager wardrobe.

“Don’t try to talk me out of going, Saphrona,” she said as she followed me back up the stairs. “He’s my brother, and I have to help him. It’s what I do.”

I turned to her in the doorway to my room. “I know it is,” I said simply, and walked over to the dresser. “And I know that you’re going to end up phasing and destroying what I’m about to give you. I just think you’ll be more comfortable if you have real clothes on.”

“And less distracting to your perverted brother,” she noted.

I frowned at her as I handed her another tracksuit. “Juliette, Lochlan genuinely cares about you. Maybe that means nothing to you, but he does. He doesn’t want you to go because he doesn’t want to see you get hurt again.”

She sighed as she removed the blanket she’d tied around her like a toga with one hand, letting it fall to the floor. “I know he does,” she said quietly. “And I kinda like him too, may I be struck by lightning for admitting that.”

I quirked a corner of my mouth up as I regarded her. “What’s wrong with liking him?” I asked.

Her eyebrows winged up as she unfolded and then jerked on the pants of the track suit. “Saphrona, do you really have to ask? He’s a vampire. I’m a shapeshifter. Only thing we could ever have is a nice little affair, and that’s not what I want out of life. I want and deserve more than casual sex. And, well, so does he—or so he’s said. Besides, he and I are both looking forward to pair-bonding like you and Mark have, and an affair would interfere with that.”

“How so?”

She shrugged as she was unzipping the jacket to the suit. “It would complicate things,” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves. “I don’t want to have to face the mess of disentangling myself from even a casual relationship when my imprint comes along. I want to be able to transition into that relationship seamlessly.”

I sighed. “I understand that, more than you know. But I also know you can’t always resist the desire to live while you wait—after all, I went so far as to get married. Certainly I’m not saying you have to do that, and certainly not with my brother. I’m not even saying you have to get involved if you don’t want to. But the two of you are important to Mark and me and it would be great if you could at least be friends.”

Juliette nodded as she zipped the jacket closed over her bare chest. “I’ll give that a try,” she said at last, and we turned in unison to leave my room.

Lochlan was waiting for us by the back door. He looked Juliette up and down, his eyes staying for a moment on her bare feet before he looked up again, saying, “What, no shoes?”

“Ain’t gonna need ‘em,” she said, breezing by him.

Loch looked at me. “I sure hope she knows what she’s doing,” he muttered, and followed her out the door.

When we were all in his Escalade, Juliette sat forward, asking, “You going to be alright to drive? It’s getting lighter outside.”

My brother glanced up through the windshield as he turned the key in the ignition. “Your concern for my welfare is overwhelming, but unnecessary, considering I just chugged a quart of blood. I’ll be awake a while yet.”

“Loch, have you ever created a blood bond?” I asked, interrupting them.

He looked at me. “A few times. Why?”

“You ever tried to find anyone you bonded to? Because I haven’t,” I replied.

Loch maneuvered a three-point turn in the wide parking space of the driveway so that he could pull directly out. “You have to concentrate on the person you want to find. Believe it or not, it helps to close your eyes and imagine the taste of his blood.”

“Won’t she want to drink his blood if she starts thinking about what it tastes like?” Juliette asked.

He grinned at her over his shoulder. “Why do you think it helps? Besides, I don’t imagine Mark will protest her having a sip.”

I leaned my head back against the headrest and ignored them, closing my eyes and remembering the last time Mark and I had made love. No, wait… I hadn’t bitten him during that all-too-brief session on the kitchen table. When was the last time I had bitten him before that?

Oh, right: yesterday morning in the wee hours, after the dozens of firemen and police had finally left my farm, the barn in ruins and the animals dead, and I had needed the comforting reassurance of physical intimacy to remind me that I was still alive. I’d been rather savage that time, had taken more than I usually did, but Mark had not complained even once. It was as if through the metaphysical bond we shared he seemed to know what to give so that I could take. For such a gung-ho soldier type, he was turning out to be every woman’s fantasy.

That is, the kind of guy who gives his woman whatever she needs or wants.

But then, he was also proving himself to be a stereotypical macho man. He had, after all, taken off early in the morning to meet the men who had beaten and tortured his sister, without back-up, knowing it could get him killed. He either had not stopped to think about the risks, or thought that with his specialized training he might just be able to handle them on his own in spite of what we had told him.

I pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on that last bite, of sinking my teeth into the flesh at the curve of his neck and shoulder, of feeling that warm, rich liquid flow into my mouth. I thought about how indescribably euphoric it felt to feed on him and orgasm at the same time, and then my back arched, straining against the seatbelt as I suddenly and sharply felt the connection form between my mind and Mark’s.

“He’s here…” I said breathily, my eyes still closed. “In my mind, I can… I can feel him.”

“Where is he?!” Juliette demanded.

Lochlan hushed her. “Alright now, Saphrona… Which direction did Mark go when he pulled out of the driveway?” he asked in a low voice.

“Left,” I said, feeling strangely detached from myself. “Turn left.”

“Left it is,” said my brother, and he pulled down the driveway, turning left onto the street. When we came to the end of it, he asked me again which direction to turn.

“Columbus is to the right—he met them at the mall, remember?” Juliette said.

“No.” I shook my head and looked at her, finally feeling strong enough to concentrate on the connection and keep my eyes open. “Go left again, toward town. Mark may have gone to Easton, or they may have met him on the road, I don’t know. But he’s here in town, I can feel him relatively close by.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “If they were just going to bring him back to town or ambush him on the side of the road, why the text luring him to Columbus?”

“Perhaps it is all part of the game, the bastards,” Lochlan said. “I can’t wait to get my hands on them.”

“Then have I got a surprise for you,” Juliette declared. “One of them is the tick you and Mark got into it with at the movie theater.”

“Turn right at the next light, Lochlan,” I broke in.

He acknowledged my direction and turned when he came to the corner, then cast a glance over his shoulder at his other passenger. “Oh really now? Well then, that makes it all the more fun…and gives me all the more reason to tear his sodding head off.”

Juliette actually grinned at that, but once again I made myself tune the two of them out. I had never created a blood bond before, let alone tried to trace somebody through one, and I feared losing the connection to Mark. I assuaged my fear for him with the fact that I wouldn’t be feeling anything at all were he not still alive. I had to take comfort in that or my fear might end up controlling me, and I couldn’t let that happen. If it did, I would be of no use to anyone, let alone Mark.

“Turn left up ahead,” I said to Lochlan.

My brother nodded, and then said, “What the bloody sodding hell…?”

Juliette, still sitting forward in the middle of the back seat, grabbed his shoulder. “What? What is it?” she demanded.

He ignored her. “Saphrona, no offense love, but are you sure you’ve got it right? I mean, do you realize where we are going?”

Blinking, I took a good look around at the buildings and scenery outside.

“That son of a bitch!” I all but screamed. “I will kill him, I swear to God!”

“What?!” Juliette demanded forcefully. “What are you talking about? Where are we?”

Lochlan glanced back over his shoulder once more, a grim look on his face. “It would appear, my lovely Siberian friend, that we are going to see our father.”