36
Oliver watched in horror as Corbin pulled Ursula in front of his body like a shield. Oliver had reached for his gun the moment he’d entered the room from the balcony, but he hesitated now. He wasn’t a crack shot, and if Corbin moved in vampire speed, dragging Ursula with him, the bullet could hit her instead. He couldn’t take that risk.
“Look who’s joined us!” Corbin said to Ursula. “Your boyfriend. Shame he’s too late.”
Corbin reached into his pocket producing a handgun which he now held to Ursula’s temple.
Shock coursed through Oliver, but he forced himself to remain calm and sound unconcerned, when he answered, “That’s not how I see it. I came just in time. Granted, I found your house empty when I got there. Are you moving?” Oliver asked casually. “What a shame. That was a nice house.”
Corbin forced a smile. “In my profession moving comes with the territory.”
“Where to this time?”
“That’s my business, if you don’t mind. Now drop your gun.”
“You won’t shoot her. She’s too valuable to you.”
An evil grin spread over Corbin’s face. “The bullet won’t kill her, but it’ll hurt nevertheless.” He lowered his gun to her shoulder.
Realizing that Corbin wasn’t bluffing, Oliver dropped his weapon to the floor.
Then he watched in panic as Corbin took a couple of steps backwards toward the door, keeping Ursula pressed closely to his front.
“One last question before I leave: how did you know it was me?” Corbin asked.
“You shouldn’t have said you only went to the blood brothel once. When I realized you were lying about that, I figured you could be lying about other things too. Like the new address of the blood brothel. Particularly since nobody else got an email with the address. Funny that you would be the only client who did.”
Corbin lifted an eyebrow then shrugged. “Ah, well, next time I’ll know.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Oliver prophesized.
But Corbin reached behind him and opened the door. Ursula stared at Oliver, her eyes wide with fear, her hands trying to pry off Corbin’s arm, to no avail.
Oliver perceived a movement behind Corbin in the hallway when the door swung open wider. “Corbin, you made one other fatal mistake.”
For a second, Corbin stopped in his movements. “Nice try.”
“You assumed I came alone.”
A shot rang out. Corbin’s right arm, holding the gun, dropped as he cried out in pain, blood seeping from his shoulder. Ursula wrenched free of him, falling forward in the struggle. Corbin’s face distorted into a grimace, but it appeared that the bullet had exited his shoulder and was therefore doing no further damage.
Aided by his left hand, Corbin raised his gun arm again, aiming at Ursula as she tried to crawl to safety.
“You’ll never get her or the other girls.”
Oliver lunged and barreled into Corbin, knocking him to the ground. As Corbin hit the floor with his injured shoulder, he lost the gun. It skidded underneath the bed, out of reach of either one of them. Oliver was on him in an instant. They struggled, exchanging blows and punches too fast for the human eye to follow.
Oliver repeatedly pounded into Corbin’s wound, but the bastard was strong, and his left hook whipped Oliver’s head to the side. Using the momentum he had, Corbin rolled, and Oliver suddenly found himself underneath him, being pounded by the evil vampire’s fists.
Oliver kicked his leg up and managed to drive his knee into Corbin’s thigh, making him pull back for a moment. It was enough to get out from underneath him and roll to the side.
Corbin’s next blow missed, and Oliver knew his enemy’s strength was waning. Corbin knew it too. Oliver pinned him down with one arm against Corbin’s throat. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a stake. Corbin’s hand moved, jerking something from his pocket. From the corner of his eye, Oliver saw what it was: not a weapon, but a cell phone. Corbin’s arm pulled back like a pitcher, even though his range was limited.
“You’ll never find them!” he vowed and tried to smash the phone against the wall.
But Oliver slammed the stake into his heart and whipped around in vampire speed, catching the phone in mid-flight before it could hit the wall and smash to pieces. Beneath him Corbin disintegrated into dust.
Breathing heavily, Oliver clutched the iPhone tightly and stared back to where Corbin’s dust settled. “Maybe I should have mentioned that I was the catcher for my baseball team, a*shole.”
Cain burst into the room, still holding his gun. “Guess I’m a worse shot than I thought.”
“Should have waited for me,” Thomas admonished on rushing into the room behind him.
“What took you guys so long?” Oliver growled at his colleagues, but didn’t wait for an answer and instead rushed to Ursula. “Ursula, baby. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She reached for him, and he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m okay,” she whispered. Then her hands fisted in his shirt. “There’ll be a dozen vampires waiting for you at the warehouse in Oakland.”
“We’ve got it under control.”
She took a few deep breaths. “The girls. He said he’s taking them away. They were being loaded up somewhere. But he didn’t say where.”
Oliver raised his hand that held Corbin’s cell phone, then turned to face his colleagues.
“Thomas, can you crack the password on Corbin’s phone and see if you can find a trail? He wanted to destroy it, which makes me think there’s information on it as to the girls’ whereabouts.” Oliver ran his hand over Ursula’s hair.
Thomas took the phone. “No problem. Give me a few minutes.” He sat down on the bed and pulled out a small electronic device from his leather jacket, then plugged the attached cable into Corbin’s iPhone.
Ursula wrapped her arms around Oliver’s neck. “You saved me.”
Oliver smiled and motioned to Cain. “Technically, Cain helped me, but if you want to kiss me instead, I’m game.”
He had barely finished his last word, when Ursula pressed her lips on his and seared them with a kiss. Had Cain not been standing there, watching them, Oliver would have allowed himself to indulge in more than just a kiss. But the situation wasn’t over yet, and there were still innocents that needed saving.
As he looked to the hallway, he noticed several of Vera’s girls approach. “Shit, they must have heard the gunshot. Cain, I think you’ll have some cleaning up to do.”
Cain nodded when all of a sudden Vera burst into the room. Her gaze darted from Oliver and Ursula to Cain and Thomas then back to Oliver. “I found Ophelia dead in one of the rooms,” she murmured, shutting the door behind her. “A broken neck.”
Oliver closed his eyes. “Oh, shit. Corbin must have killed her.”
“Corbin? The new client you referred?” Vera asked.
“So that’s how he got in.”
Cain lifted his hand. “I’ll fill you in shortly, Vera. But first you and I will need to clean up.” He motioned to the door behind which Vera’s girls were still hovering. Oliver could hear their concerned voices through the door.
Cain ushered Vera out of the room, following her.
Oliver looked at Thomas who stared at his gadget, deep in concentration. Knowing he shouldn’t disturb him, he pulled Ursula aside.
“How did you know that Corbin would come for me?” she asked quietly.
“When I found Corbin had moved everything out of his house, I was close to going insane. I knew then that he’d set up the trap to get two birds with one stone: get me and Scanguards off his back, while snatching you to take you and the girls away.”
“I never suspected him being the boss,” Ursula admitted. “He was just like any other leech. He didn’t stand out.”
“I guess that was the point. He wanted to blend in so that he could keep an eye on things. I’m just wondering how he could hide the fact that he was an addict. I saw no signs in him.” Oliver couldn’t believe that he’d been so blind.
“Maybe he wasn’t an addict.”
“But how?”
“What if he never drank much of our blood?”
“Go on,” Oliver said with interest.
She lowered her voice even more, obviously not wanting to by overheard by Thomas, even though Oliver knew that his colleague could hear her if he was inclined to listen. “Remember when you used mind control to make me think you bit me?”
He nodded. How could he forget? “But mind control doesn’t work on vampires. The guards would have noticed.”
“He could simply have dug his fangs in on that side of the neck that was turned away from the guard, but never sucked on the vein. The guard would have smelled the blood because he punctured our skin, but we would have never known that he didn’t drink from us because he used mind control to make us think we sensed him sucking on our vein.”
“My god, you might be right. How else could he have maintained control?” He smiled at her. “You’re very smart.”
She returned his smile then turned serious again. “Will we find them?”
Instead of an answer, he turned to look at Thomas, who looked up from the phone at the same moment, a triumphant grin on his face.
“Got it!”