chapter 21
Gerard’s skin began to cool. His fangs extended, touching his bottom lip.
Amber looked at the clock. It wasn’t quite eight a.m. yet. Her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, her thoughts sluggish, but she needed to talk to Reid.
She quietly slid out of bed and dressed. Then she slipped from the room and tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs. Feeling like a thief—or a perv who liked to watch people sleep—she let herself into the guest room on the right.
“Reid,” she whispered from the door, afraid to step closer for fear of finding out her partner slept naked. “Reid, get up. We need to talk.”
He bolted upright in bed. "Yeah. I'm still awake."
The covers slid to his waist revealing a sprinkling of dark hair over a leanly muscled chest. Reid wasn’t as broad or thick as Gerard, but he had a surprisingly well-sculpted chest. Flushing, Amber averted her gaze. “Put some clothes on and join me in the kitchen.”
“Okay. Just give me a sec to get dressed.”
Amber dashed from the room when naked legs came out from beneath the covers.
In the kitchen, she put on some coffee and waited for enough to drip into the pot before filling her cup. Reid joined her a few minutes later. He grabbed a mug and sat across from her at the table. “We're going without them. Aren't we?”
“That's the plan.”
“Shit,” Reid took a gulp of coffee, lowered the cup and raked a hand through his hair, spiking it on top of his head. “You know they're going to be pissed if we go without them. And they're vampires. Lucky for you, I trust you with my life or I’d be speed-dialing 911 for back up.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said, trying for sarcasm but feeling humbled.
He smiled. “So, what’s your plan, partner?”
“I want to leave for Piney Grove within the hour. If you drive, I can get a little much-needed sleep.”
"Like I said earlier. I'm good. Driving will be the least of my problems."
She brushed away the guilt. She hated putting Reid in danger and she felt as if she were betraying Gerard. But she wasn’t breaking a promise. She’d never made one. “Axel’s suffered enough. He might be a vampire, but until proven otherwise, he’s innocent and we have to save him if we can. And we don’t have time to wait for Gerard and Vincent to wake up. When they’re awake, the clone’s awake. It’s too dangerous."
"You don't have to convince me of the danger."
"Then we have to go today while they’re still asleep. If we can get to Piney Grove by noon or a little after, we can do what needs doing and keep this situation contained.”
Reid eyed her over the rim of his cup. “Do you honestly think you can drive a stake through a man’s chest while he’s asleep—especially a man who looks like Gerard?”
She swallowed her doubts—her fears. “No. But you can. And the clone isn’t a man. He’s a dangerous vampire without a soul or a conscience. Once he’s dead, he should—vaporize into ash or something. That ought to alleviate your guilt.”
His brows came together over frowning eyes. He slowly lowered his cup. “Do you honestly believe that?”
Heat rose to her cheeks. “No. But what other choice do we have? He’s a proven threat and neither of us have silver handcuffs.”
Or silver bullets…
“But we have Megan. She has a sedative. If we take her with us, she can shoot ’em up or inject them, or whatever she has to do to make sure Axel and the clone remain asleep until we figure out what to do with them.”
Megan didn’t trust Vincent not to leave her behind any more than Amber trusted Gerard. But could she trust Megan not to alert Vincent of their plans—either consciously or sub consciously? Vincent seemed acutely aware of Megan’s moods. “I don’t know…”
Before she could say more, Megan entered the kitchen. She looked about as sleep deprived as Amber felt.
“I’m going with you.” She looked at Amber. “I think maybe you were right about Vincent’s blood mingling with mine. I can’t read your thoughts the way a vampire could, but I’m definitely more intuitive than I used to be. I think maybe I’m some sort of manufactured dhampir.” She laughed self-consciously. “I definitely picked up your non-verbal cues earlier. You didn’t say or do anything, but I knew you weren’t going to wait for nightfall before making a move.”
“If you knew Amber, you wouldn’t have to be a mind reader to know she’s not going to wait around for anyone,” Reid said. “Once she has the intel, she formulates a plan and moves forward.”
Reid was still in denial, but Amber knew the truth. By injecting herself with Vincent’s blood to create the vampire vaccine, Megan had turned herself into a dhampir—part mortal—part vampire. Whether the change was permanent or not was anyone’s guess. But for now, those changes could be as much of a hindrance as a help.
“Can you mask your thoughts around Vincent?”
“I shouldn’t have to,” Megan replied. “He’s asleep. Even with the anti-virus, he shouldn’t awaken before noon—long after we’re gone.”
“If we’re going to try and make it by noon, we have to leave now,” Reid said.
Were they really going ahead with her plan? Were they going after a mad scientist and his vampire clone without back up?
Do we have a choice?
“I showered last night,” Amber said. “Just let me get my gun and my sterling letter opener.”
“I’ll need to stop by the apartment and get my gun.” He rose from his chair and met her gaze with a nervous smile. “I don’t own a sterling silver letter opener, but I do have a silver dagger—remnants of my childhood fantasy days.”
Megan smiled, but she looked as if she were going to be sick. “All I have is half a dozen syringes filled with the garlic extract vampire sedative.”
“That might be the best weapon in our arsenal.” But how well did the sedative work? And for how long? And what the hell were they going to do with two comatose vampires? Put them in the trunk?
“Maybe we should take one of the panel vans from Lifeblood,” Megan suggested as if reading Amber’s mind. “We can keep Axel protected from the sun light in back, and if we can secure the clone without killing it, we can keep him protected too.”
“If we don’t destroy the clone, how will we contain him?” Amber said, thinking aloud.
“Maybe we should contact whatever police presence they have in Piney Grove—or the Surry County Sheriff’s department,” Reid suggested.
Amber wanted to laugh—not because Reid’s suggestion was ludicrous, but because their situation was so freaking unbelievable. “Unless they throw their prisoners in a forty foot pit or have sterling silver bars on their jails, I don’t think they’d be able to contain a rogue vampire either.”
“But Weldon’s human,” Reid argued. “And I don’t want the case against him getting thrown out of court because we conducted a warrantless search outside of our jurisdiction.”
She looked at Megan. Fear shone in her eyes—a fear Amber shared. Carl Matheson already knew about vampires. If he discovered Vincent and Gerard were creatures of the night…
Amber had never knowingly broken the law, but she no longer had a choice. Gerard and Vincent weren’t heartless killers. She had to protect them. At all cost. “We can’t involve anyone else. We can’t get warrants, and we can’t follow normal police procedures.”
Lines creased Reid’s forehead. “And how do you propose we justify storming a facility Weldon’s renting to search for evidence without a warrant? Even if we have probable cause that Weldon’s holding Axle Travers, Surry County is out of our jurisdiction. How would we explain being there?”
“Vincent, Gerard, and Sonia can create whatever proof or legal documents you need after Weldon’s in custody,” Megan said.
His brows shot up to his hairline. “You expect me to condone the manufacturing of evidence in a criminal case?”
“Get real,” Amber said, feeling as frustrated as her partner. Normal laws didn’t apply when dealing with vampires. “We can’t get a warrant, and we can’t ask for help. We’re on our own.”
“You really expect me to stake Count Dracula’s clone?” He shook his head. “What if I can’t? What if that thing wakes up? We need backup.”
“No.” Breaking the rules didn’t sit well with him. Another reason Amber considered asking Gerard to erase his memory.
“What about getting Carl involved?” he suggested. “He could get a federal warrant. Then, it wouldn’t matter what we found. He could take care of the vampires and Weldon. We’d rescue Travers and still get credit for solving the case.”
She no longer cared if she got credit for solving the case or not. She knew what had gone down that night at Lifeblood Labs. She just wanted to rescue Axel, destroy the clone, stop Weldon, and protect Gerard from Carl Matheson and any other government agency investigating vampires.
“I don’t trust him or his involvement with Surratt. If Surratt finds out my memory has retuned and that I know what I am, he might come after me. And I don’t want to draw Carl’s attention to Gerard or Vincent.”
“Amber’s right,” Megan added. “We can’t trust any branch of the government that knows vampires exist. They’d destroy them, contain them, or experiment on them. Probably all three. The government wouldn’t consider them human so they’d have no compunctions about the morality of their actions.”
Reid shoved his coffee mug aside with a frustrated grunt. “Then what the hell do we do? We can’t go in alone, but if we wait for Count Dracula and Barnabus, we risk that clone waking up to snack on our necks or turn us into vampires.”
Amber wasn’t afraid of becoming a vampire. Vampire blood flowed through her veins. She wanted to save Axle Travers. But if she discovered he’d killed innocent victims to feed his hunger, she’d be forced to destroy him.
Time was ticking and they were burning daylight.
She looked at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine. And Piney Grove was three and half hours away.
“We should head to Lifeblood and get that van like Megan suggested. Megan and I can sleep in the back and you can wake us up when we get there. Since we have no idea what we’re going to find when we get there, our only plan is to stay alert and watch one another’s back.” She looked at Megan. “You can stay in the van. You don’t need to risk your life for our case.”
She arched her blonde brows. Her bleary eyes brightened. “I’m doing this to protect my husband. I’d do anything to keep him safe. He’s suffered enough over the centuries.”
“And you don’t think he’d suffer if he lost you?” Amber asked.
Reid stood, gently placed his hand on Megan’s shoulder and said, “We’ll keep you safe, Megan.” He flashed Amber a too-bright smile. “I wouldn’t want to piss Barnabus off and wind up on the dinner menu.”
“Then let’s roll.” Amber smiled but inside, she was a quivering hot mess.
Killing the clone should leave no evidence to explain, but Weldon wasn’t going to surrender without a fight. If she had to shoot, it would be nearly impossible to justify her actions. Even if Gerard and his pals could manipulate evidence to exonerate her from any wrongdoing, she’d still be guilty of breaking the law.
No matter what transpired over the next twenty-four hours, her career was over.
Megan chewed her lip a second before saying, “Do we need to worry about the police showing up and arresting us for trespassing.”
Reid looked at Amber as if daring her to disagree. “She has a point. We can’t just show up in another town, flash our badges, and enter a privately owned facility without a warrant. Even if your vampire buddies can manufacture the paper work we need to cover our asses later, we can’t just storm the facility with guns drawn and stakes poised. We’d look insane.”
Amber didn’t have an argument, but she wasn’t backing down.
It is what it is. “Piney Grove doesn’t have a police department. The sheriff’s department is in Dobson. Mount Airy, Mount Pilot, and Elkin have police departments, but Piney Grove doesn’t. They don’t even have a post office anymore, so I don’t think we have to worry about stepping on anyone’s toes. Not officially.”
Why couldn’t Reid understand? Working with vampires meant bending the rules—rules she wasn’t quite comfortable bending herself. But sometimes, life required doing the wrong thing for the right reason. And to her way of thinking, protecting Gerard was a damn good reason.
“So, we’re just going to storm Mayberry, kill a few vampires, and rescue Axle Travers without drawing attention to ourselves? Yeah. Right.” Reid said with an irritable harrumph.
“If all goes according to plan, we’re going to go in without anybody knowing we were there.”
“What plan?”
“This we’ll defend,” she said, repeating the army motto. “And we’re damn sure going to try defending peaceful vampires while protecting the world from rogue ones bent on destruction.”
Reid looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe that’s what Carl and Surratt are trying to do.”
Hearing Surratt’s name sent fire flowing through Amber’s veins. “Surratt’s idea of protecting vampires puts mortals at risk. He may not have killed my mother, but he created the son-of-a-bitch who did.”
“I’m just saying…” Reid’s voice trailed off, the words unfinished and ripe with disappointed.
Amber took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe she was overly sensitive where Surratt was concerned, but she couldn’t let go of the past, and her future was unpredictable.
Hell, everyone’s future was unpredictable. And it had nothing to do with vampires. Maybe it was time she stopped living in the past and fearing the future. Maybe she just needed to live in the present and accept whatever pleasures it offered.
It gave her something to ponder as she curled up in the back of the Lifeblood van across from Megan and closed her eyes.