Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (33 page)

“Annie, we can handle it.”

Her snort said volumes. “Wally, please quit trying to be Superman. This is a king bat with an army of vamps, half-human slaves, and over a century’s experience in guarding his ass. No slayer’s ever gone after him solo. They always attack in a bunch, and so far, they haven’t succeeded. I understand why you don’t trust the Preacher—now that I’ve met him, I can’t blame you there—but it sure wouldn’t hurt to have backup. This one time, use some common sense.”

Wallace set his lips in a hard line. “Tell me where the golf course is.”

“You’ll just do something stupid.”

“C’mon, Annie. Don’t make me come over there.”

“No. You can’t just go charging in. Give us a chance to get a posse together.”

“Made up of who? You and Gus? That Preacher creep? Any other old fogies we knew from back in the glory days? Fuck that. I got my posse with me. All we need is the address.”

“Sure. You, Colleen and Jeremy, right? Jeremy, sweetheart, you know I love you, but you can’t throw a punch to save your life. And Colleen—”

“I’m with Wallace. Screw that. Yesterday proved I can’t hide from them. I sure can’t hide from my DNA. The only way out is to stop them right now, before—”
Before I wind up like Kitsune.
She swallowed and finished. “Before they try again.”

“Damn right,” Jeremy added.

Annie huffed. “Wally, you’re a stubborn, bloodsucking cuss, and now you’ve gone and infected these two poor innocent kids. Nice going.”

“Just tell me the goddamn address, Annie.”

Reluctantly, she did. “It used to be the Desert View Country Club. The signs may or may not still be up. Listen, Gus will be home any minute. Wait for him. We can figure this out.”

“Relax. We’re not attacking tonight.” Colleen and Jeremy exchanged a “We’re not?” look before aiming incredulous stares at Wallace. He grinned crookedly back at them. “Believe it or not, I’ve got a plan.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan. We’ll sit tight until Gus gets in. Then you call us back, and we’ll go over the details. I guarantee you won’t like it.” He lost his grin, and shook his head. “I know I sure don’t.”

Chapter 18

Jeremy maneuvered the rental van up the Desert View Country Club’s long, narrow drive. The renovations promised in the press releases appeared to be on hold. Weeds had sprouted on the fairways, the water hazards had developed an edging of scum, and the greens were beginning to go desert brown in the unforgiving sun. This Joshua-tree-lined driveway, by contrast, didn’t sport so much as a bump.

“Road’s been kept up,” Jeremy remarked, as if reading Colleen’s mind. “Bet the buildings are in tip-top shape, with all the windows boarded up.”

Colleen could guess why the place had gone belly-up under its previous owners. The golf course sat a good four miles from the nearest major highway, and its unmarked entrance was tough to find on a twisty road. Bad for business, good for vamps. Location, location, location.

She peered through the windshield at the sun-drenched clubhouse visible beyond the third hole’s tee. She swallowed hard and gripped her stake. The carven bolt of ash hadn’t left her hand since they’d left the highway. “How many do you think will be in there?”

“Just the girls, I hope. If there are any vamps, they should be asleep. Noon’s the worst time for vampires. The sun’s at its peak. If we’re really, really lucky, we can get the girls out of there without even spotting a vamp.”

And then set fire to the whole complex, destroying it and any vampires who happened to be denning there. She understood Jeremy’s reluctance to mention that part of the plan. He didn’t like any of it, particularly Wallace’s involvement, but what other options did they have?

Speaking of Wallace…Colleen glanced into the back of the van at the motionless form in the sleeping bag lying on the floor. “What about Wallace? Will he wake up?”

Jeremy snickered. “He’ll wake up, and he’ll be grouchy as hell. I pity any bat in there. Colleen, relax. It’ll be fine. He’s not like regular vamps.”

“Some of them aren’t like regular vamps, either. That’s how I got here.”

“We won’t run into any of those,” Jeremy said with enough certainty to fool anyone but Colleen. “It’ll just be normal vamps, the kind who follow orders.” He flashed her a bleak smile. “Can’t have the help feeding on or molesting the prize stock.”

“No,” Colleen mumbled. “Can’t have that. What about that blonde? What was she? She wasn’t a follower, and she sure couldn’t have been Lebec.”

“Lieutenant, maybe,” Jeremy guessed. “In any flock, there’s always only one king or queen. In a really big flock, the leader might have a couple of deputies. It looks like Lebec put Blondie in charge of the women. Don’t worry. If she’s here, she’ll be asleep like the rest.”

“I’m not worried.” Colleen throttled her stake.

Jeremy brought the van right up to the clubhouse door. Sure enough, every building Colleen could see looked to be in pristine condition. With the exception of the clubhouse lobby, every visible window had been boarded up, exactly as predicted.

“This must be the place,” she said, nowhere near as lightly as she meant to.

Jeremy shut off the engine. “Try the door, see if there’s a way in. I’ll wake Wallace.”

“Good luck.” Colleen climbed down with her stake in her hand and her heart in her throat. It was so quiet out here. There should have been birdsong, sprinklers swishing, laughter, and the occasional blurted “Shit!” from the greens. The silence turned her thoughts to words like “grave.” At this point, she wasn’t sure which would be worse, finding vamps here or not.

Naturally, the doors were locked. Colleen peered through the glass and saw no one inside. “I hope you brought tools,” she called to Jeremy. “We’re going to need a crowbar or something.”

“Got one,” Jeremy said and brandished the length of iron as proof. He had his arm around a yawning, red-eyed, monumentally grumpy Wallace. Jeremy had wrapped Wallace’s sun-vulnerable body in a blanket with a corner pulled over his head.

Wallace flinched away from the harsh sunlight with a bestial snarl. “This was a stupid idea. You knew it was a stupid idea. Why the hell didn’t you stop me?”

“Because we couldn’t come up with anything better. Colleen and I will get the doors open, then you run in. This is as close as we could get. Can you make it?”

For answer, Wallace leaped from the van and charged. Colleen barely had a second to jump aside before Wallace hit the doors full on and at full vampire speed. Glass shattered. Colleen flung up her arm to protect her eyes. When she lowered it again, the doors hung on twisted metal frames, glass covered the floor like sparkly sawdust, and Wallace had already disappeared. The discarded blanket lay beside a swinging inner door.

“Or,” Jeremy said, “there’s always that.” He hopped down and joined Colleen at the ruined doors. He held on to the crowbar. She clutched her stake. Hand in hand, they went inside.

The lobby had once served as the pro shop. Tables, shelves, and racks stood empty, gathering desert dust. The inner door led to the country club’s former restaurant and bar. Unlike the pro shop, this room’s windows had been covered with plywood and duct-taped around the edges for good measure. Wallace stood motionless in the gloom, marked by his glowing crimson eyes. Jeremy motioned Colleen to be quiet. They stood back and let him scan the room—the whole building, Colleen suspected—with his vampire senses.

“They’re here,” he announced in a growl. He pointed at a heavy curtain to his left. It had been hung across a wide archway in lieu of a door. “I’m hearing heartbeats. Really slow, not like you two rabbits. I can’t tell how many. It’s all in a mass.”

“What about vampires?” Jeremy whispered.

“Hard to say. The whole place stinks like a bat convention. They must be in and out of here a lot. Right now? No telling.” His glare focused past the bar and the tables to another inner door. “Kitchen,” he guessed. “Freezer. I was a bat in this turkey outfit, that’s where I’d hole up.”

Colleen glanced around the empty room and tried to quiet her galloping heart. It sounded in her ears as loud as timpani. She could only guess how it must sound to Wallace with Jeremy’s added in.

“Do you think they heard us?” she said.

The curtain Wallace had pointed to swung aside a crack. A pallid face peeked out. The woman spotted them. Her hand flew to her mouth. She screamed through her spread fingers and ducked back inside.

“Offhand, yeah, I’d say they did.” Wallace darted to the curtain. “Stay behind me. Let me handle it.” He grabbed a stake from beneath his bomber jacket and yanked the curtain aside.

Of all the things Colleen had pictured, this hadn’t made the list. Somehow cells, chains, dripping scum, and rats had figured into her imaginings. The reality was a spacious room with a faux fireplace, plush rugs, and comfortable-looking sofas and chairs. Someone had pried the plywood off a window to let some sunlight in. A plasma TV, tuned to a talk show, glowed on one of the walls. The scene reminded Colleen, sharply and uncomfortably, of a harem room in some old 1930s desert melodrama.

The faces, though, those she’d gotten right. Some had changed with maturity, but enough of the girls they’d been remained for her to recognize them. Reese, Jean, Carrie, Terry, others whose names had faded from memory, Colleen knew them all. Her throat closed up around the whimper that struggled to escape it.

They’d gathered in a cluster near the un-boarded window and its protective blades of sunlight. Wallace snarled, unable to approach them, so Colleen took the initiative. She stepped forward gingerly. The panic on their faces, the dull cast to their eyes, made her chest ache. When Jeremy tried to hold her back, she shook his hand away. Her own hand, and the stake it held, dropped to her side, forgotten.

“Jean?” She addressed a slim redhead with porcelain skin and wide gray eyes. “Jean Waterson? It’s me, Colleen. Colleen Bre—Colleen Forrester. We grew up together at the Woods and the Waters. We’re here to help you. We’re going to get you out of here.”

In response, the woman hissed. Her eyes went from gray to red. Baring a pair of impressive fangs, she lunged straight at Colleen. Jeremy swung his crowbar at the woman’s shoulder and knocked her aside. She rolled and came up as quick as a snake, apparently unhurt. Still hissing, she edged back to the knot at the window. There was no recognition in her eyes.

“So much for the chick approach,” Wallace muttered. “All right, ladies, listen up. There’s been a change in management. I’m in charge now. We’re moving you all to a new location. No bitching, and no more attacking my servants here, or you’ll get a lot worse than a crowbar. Any questions?”

The tall honey-blonde who had once been Reese Lake tentatively opened her mouth. Fangs showed. She snapped it shut again. No one else tried to speak. It sickened Colleen how passively they stood there, how readily they acquiesced to even a strange vampire’s orders. Fangs, super strength, and no will at all.

This is what they had in mind for me.

Wallace gestured. Jean, submissive now, started toward the curtain. The others fell in line like sheep. Jeremy went to the curtain to hold it aside for them.

Watching her former playmates plod past her, Colleen didn’t see the attack. She heard Jeremy grunt and Wallace hiss at something beyond her shoulder. She whirled just in time to see Jeremy yanked through the curtain and back into the restaurant area. A loud crash, as of a large body flung viciously against a wall, quickly followed. The women stopped, confused.

“Son of a bitch.” Wallace started for the curtain, but skidded to a stop when the vampire on the other side flung it back.

The blonde from the bank stood there, snarling, disheveled, and clearly no happier than Wallace to be up and around in daylight. Beyond her, Colleen glimpsed a dark-skinned girl with short black hair, perhaps nineteen or twenty. Colleen didn’t recognize her. She must have been one of the last born at the Woods and the Waters, too young to hang around with the older girls. The vampires indeed slept in the freezer, and had set one of their slaves as a guard.