Chapter 9
I strapped on my fixed-blade daggers, holstered my Glock 22 with silver bullets, added handcuffs, a stun gun, mace, and of course, my lucky boot knife.
It felt good to look like me again, with certain improvements. I wore a pair of black leather pants Tia had picked out, with a matching tank top that let me move.
Lucien watched me with obvious hunger, which I enjoyed thoroughly.
Probably because I knew he was going to do something about it later.
When I’d double-checked my gun and finished with my daggers, he tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “Thanks for saving my life.”
“My pleasure.” Parts of me went gooey just thinking about it.
Vinny clomped through the kitchen, carrying a shotgun in each hand. “Never mind the fact that I was stuck in the garage for the last two hours.”
I checked the clock on the mantel. Two hours? I ran a palm up Lucien’s arm, admiring his tight black T-shirt. “I’m impressed.” The man had stamina.
“And I had to send away the medic,” Vinny grumbled. “Good thing you weren’t exactly subtle. I don’t like surprises.”
“Why does he think this is about him?” I asked Lucien.
He kissed me on the nose. “I have no idea.”
Vinny headed for the front door. “Can you knock it off? We have a tiger to cage.”
It was about the only thing he could have said to move me from that spot.
“Later,” Lucien whispered, his breath hot against my ear.
God, I hoped so.
I admired his ass on the way to the front door. He wore jeans and combat boots, which was a very nice look for him. I was about to tell him so when we opened the door and found a visitor on the front stoop.
“Tia,” I said, surprised. I remembered her following us earlier tonight, but I had no idea she’d still be here.
She stood as soon as she saw us. Tia wore her dress from the dinner party, although it was torn on one shoulder and bore grass stains up the side. She’d also lost her shoes.
Guilt pricked at me. I’d been inside, having my way with Lucien, while she’d been, well, what had she been doing?
“What happened to you?” Vinny asked.
She ignored the question, eyes trained on me. “I told you I needed to talk to you,” she said, voice shaky.
“That you did.” But I really didn’t think she’d camp out.
Vinny took her by the arm. “Did someone attack you?”
“Excuse me?” She seemed surprised. “Um. No. I, well, it’s hard to run in a dress.”
Funny. That had been my point all along.
Tia being here was all fine and good, but we had to get moving. I’d say we had barely an hour of darkness left.
I led her down the front walk while Lucien started up the car and Vinny loaded the trunk with shotguns. “Okay, well what did you need to talk about? We’re on our way to kick some tiger ass.”
“That drug you found in your drink,” she said. “It was sparkly.”
“Yes.” I didn’t want to rush her, but as soon as Vinny went back for a few extra cases of silver bullets, we were leaving.
Tia touched my arm. “Sunny had been giving me vitamin supplements, for my husband. They were supposed to help him get extra nutrients, because, well, I’m anemic and”—a blush crept up her cheeks—“he only wanted to drink from me.”
“How romantic,” I said, stunned that I almost understood.
“It is,” she said dreamily. “Anyway, it seemed he needed more. Or at least we thought he needed something. Thomas was getting more and more tired, until one day he decided to sleep.”
Then it hit me. “Sunny was mixed up in Slimprol.”
It made sense, and it didn’t. Sunny and Bliss were friends, but Bliss didn’t seem all that eager to share her pills—or her secrets.
“How can we be sure?” Lucien asked.
“I’m sure.” She gripped my arm. “The vitamin supplements are blue and sparkly, about the size of an aspirin.”
“Holy hell.”
Vinny slammed the trunk. “All set.”
“Get in the car,” I told her.
I took a seat next to Lucien and yanked the door closed. “Sunny was giving Slimprol to Tia’s husband, Thomas.”
His expression hardened. “How can you know?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I put one on his tongue every morning.” She ended in a wail. “I thought I was helping him. I love him! Why would Sunny want him to go to sleep?”
“She wouldn’t,” Lucien said, pulling out of the drive. “But her husband, Gaston, is Thomas’s business partner, correct?”
Tia gave a sniffling nod.
“Pharmaceuticals,” Lucien added.
“What do you want to bet they’re the makers of Slimprol?” Vinny asked.
“About a hundred billion percent.” I wondered just what Sunny had gotten herself mixed up in. Tia, too.
“Is he—” Tia sobbed, “is he going to be okay?”
Vinny patted Tia on the leg, clearly uncomfortable with the grieving woman next to him. “How long has your husband been taking it?”
She gazed at him through red-rimmed eyes. “Six years.”
“Oy,” Vinny said.
“Vinny!” If I could have flicked him on the head, I would have. We all knew it was bad. She didn’t need to hear it from him.
What I wanted to know was, “What’s Sunny’s husband been doing for the last six years?”
Tia shook her head. “I don’t know, but I saw him tonight.”
“Here?” Lucien asked. “In Eternal Life Estates?”
She nodded. “While I was waiting on the porch. But he didn’t go home.”
“Where’d he go?” I asked, as we pulled up to Bliss’s house, ready to spring into action. By the expression on Tia’s face, I already knew.
“I love when a plan comes together,” Vinny said, cocking his shotguns like a Wild West cowboy.
“You call this a plan?” I asked, on Lucien’s heels.
Oh sure, we had Bliss and Gaston in one spot. “It also means we’re about to barge in on a pissed-off weretiger and a bloodsucking vampire—no offense, sweetie.”
“None taken,” he said, as we stalked to the front door, using the dense foliage as coverage. “I think our biggest consideration is that I’m still weak.”
“And I can’t shift,” I said, “not so soon after interrogating.”
Lucien gave me a long, concerned look as we waited for Vinny and Tia.
I held up my hands. “Hey, I can’t change my nature.”
He should know that by now.
“Here, babe,” Vinny said, handing Tia a shotgun.
Oh yeah. That was a good idea.
“Ready?” Lucien murmured, right before he rushed the door and kicked it in.
I sprinted after him with Vinny on my heels.
By the time I got there, Lucien was locked in combat with a white-haired vampire. In the split second it took for me to assess the situation, Bliss tackled me from behind.
My head smacked the ceramic floor and my vision swam.
Yip-yip-yip!
I turned over to see Chi-Chi launch herself at Bliss’s neck. The tiger slapped the dog away. She yelped as she slammed against the wall, but it was enough time for me to unsheathe my dagger. It sliced Bliss across the chest and she roared.
Bliss shifted, lowering her head as tiger fur raced down her back.
Vinny fired his shotgun, blowing Gaston off of Lucien. I stood, wiping blood out of my eyes.
Gaston hissed, fangs bared. Lucien was pale and bloody. He launched himself at the white-haired vampire, but Gaston dodged, tossing Vinny through the front window. His body smashed through the glass.
“Heather!” Tia screamed as Bliss readied to pounce.
I fired my pistol once. Twice. My silver bullets didn’t even slow her down. The wounded tiger kept coming. She was after blood now and there was nothing I could do.
Vinny was out. Lucien was locked in his own life-or-death battle. Tia crouched in the corner.
“Tia!” I screamed as Bliss landed on me like a two-ton brick. I pulled out my lucky boot knife, sinking it into her chest as she hit me. She kept coming. I hit the floor, rolling with her to keep her from taking out my neck, but it was just a matter of time. Only seconds.
My fingers gripped her coarse fur. It felt like time slowed as her sinewy muscles moved under my hands. She was a killing machine.
I waited for the end as blood spurted across my face. At first, I thought it was mine and I marveled at how I didn’t even feel any pain.
The tiger roared and fell backward. A large brown wolf had it by the neck.
I shot Bliss with my stun gun and reached for the last thing I had—mace—for all the good it would do us.
But Tia had the tiger in a death bite. Blood poured from the animal’s neck.
“E-yah!” I turned just in time to see a bloody Vinny move up behind Gaston and stake the vampire in the back with a broken windowpane.
I stood for a moment, in shock, as Vinny helped Lucien pick his way through the pulpy mess formerly known as Gaston. Meanwhile Tia was using the tiger for a chew toy. I wiped my dagger on the curtains and resheathed it.
Yip-yip-yip!
“You okay, Sparky?” I scooped up Chi-Chi and together we surveyed the damage. Someone was going to need the services of about a dozen Vinnys in French maid costumes to clean up this place.
Gaston was clearly no more, which was a shame. I would have liked some answers. Then I saw a hairy tiger paw twitch.
“Tia, hold back.”
The werewolf growled.
“Oh yeah, now you get pushy.”
“What is it?” Lucien asked behind me.
“I think Bliss is alive.”
Between Lucien, Vinny, and me, we managed to tempt Tia away from her prey. Actually, it was Chi-Chi’s idea. We used the steaks from the refrigerator, on a white plate for presentation. Tia was a sucker for white.
Bliss shifted back to human faster than any of us expected, but she was still weak enough that we managed to handcuff her to a pole in her garage.
I leaned against a silver Bentley while we waited for the Vampire Council police to arrive.
Bliss was blubbering by this time, although more for her vampire lover, it seemed, than for herself.
“He was the only man who ever loved me,” she sobbed, clutching the housedress we’d thrown around her.
I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Gaston was not only a drug dealer, he was also a cheat.
“He had a wife,” I reminded her.
“He didn’t love them!” she wailed. “He was impulsive. He didn’t mean to marry them!”
Say what? “Exactly how many wives are we talking about?”
“Only eight”—she sniffled—“mostly in Europe.”
“Busy guy,” Vinny said, feeding Chi-Chi yet another slice of steak.
She stared off dreamily. “He was supposed to take me to Italy next month.”
I snorted. “Watch out for blue pills.”
“You might not be too far off,” Lucien mused. “What if he put them to sleep while he was gone?”
“That’s sick,” I said.
“Makes cheating easier if wifey doesn’t know you’re gone. We’ll have to investigate further, but I’ll bet some of these women are literally sleeping their lives away.”
“You’d think they’d know.” I’d know if I was married to a seven-time bigamist. I hoped. I felt my gaze harden as Tia strolled up to the weeping tiger.
Blood streaked her arms and she wore a pale pink dressing gown Vinny had found in one of the closets. “My Thomas found out about the drug, didn’t he?”
“He was high and mighty about it. He wanted to spill the whole thing to shareholders. Gaston didn’t kill him,” she said, as if that made a difference.
“No, he just put him to sleep,” I said.
“What are the side effects?” Tia demanded. “How do I bring him back?”
“I don’t know. You could ask Gaston but you killed him!” Bliss collapsed into another round of sobbing.
That’s when I knew. “Sunny figured it out, didn’t she?”
Bliss sniffled. “The bitch. She couldn’t just be happy being one of his wives. She had to be his only wife.”
“Did she know you were sleeping with him?” Wild guess, but I wasn’t about to try to enter her mind right now.
“No,” she gulped, “but Sunny was going to tell about his other wives. She was going to bring in her wolf pack. She told me and Francine all about it.” Her eyes were wild. “She was going to take him from me!”
“So you killed her,” Lucien said.
She nodded, gulping. “You don’t understand. I need a man. I have nothing. The damned dog has more than I do!”
Chi-Chi growled.
Damned straight.
“The only money I had came from Nina,” she said.
Right. “You mean from blackmailing Nina.”
Who wasn’t blackmailing Nina?
Bliss shrugged. “She had the money. And she’s a slut.”
Err ... pot calling kettle?
“Sunny’s husband, Gaston. He was giving you money, wasn’t he?” asked Lucien.
Bliss stiffened. “He could afford it.”
Maybe. Still, “You didn’t love him. You just needed a sugar daddy.”
“I loved him!” she wailed. “And I hated Sunny.”
“How’d you kill her?” Lucien demanded.
She cowered, trapped.
“You already told us you did it, Bliss,” I reminded her. I could see how getting clocked with an ornate medieval chandelier would kill Sunny. But how had Bliss nailed her with it?
I could see her making her decision. Finally she relented. “I snuck in while she was out mooning over that damned gardener. It didn’t take long to cut the links on the chandelier.” She gave a sullen look. “I only had to knock it enough to spin free of the broken link for it to fall. I hated that god-awful piece of junk. He gave it to her. She didn’t deserve anything from him. She didn’t even see it coming.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Now he’s never coming back.”
I just hoped Tia’s husband could.