Dark Heart of the Sun (Dark Destinies Book 1) (18 page)

Chapter 17

Island Tales

Jackson paced the Foundation’s library. Waiting for Uncle Garrett had been a mistake. He should have been back at Cassidy’s place at sunrise. While Garrett was busy dealing with a storm-damaged building in his official capacity as Striker Capital’s Director of Security, Jackson should have taken the initiative and killed that bloodsucking bastard holed up with Cassidy.

Too bad he needed him alive.

And keeping a not-so-oblivious vampire under control, required the Foundation’s more specialized facilities—to which only Garrett could grant him access.

Jackson balled his fists with impotent frustration. Last night’s harrowing encounter still twanged on his nerves. The shuttered and draped little bedroom should have been a clue. Yet the idea of a vampire sharing its lair with Cassidy was so outlandish he didn’t even entertain it until he stood face-to-face with the creature and got a good look at that too-flawless skin and those too-penetrating eyes. To say nothing of the attitude.

Obviously Cassidy was compelled into staying there. Yet even Jackson, who knew her so well, hadn’t recognized the effect. She didn’t come across as distracted or confused as would be expected of someone coerced to act against their better interest. The compulsion was deep, evidence of unusual skill. And that Jackson had walked away from a confrontation for which he was so completely unprepared proved his own self-control and ability to function under pressure.

His father and Uncle Garrett were wrong about him. Jackson Striker was ready to hunt. He was more than ready. He only needed to nail down his uncle long enough to make that clear.

The opportunity presented itself moments later when the electronic lock unlatched and Garrett swept into the room like a remnant of the storm itself. “Is this where you’ve been hiding all day?”

“Waiting for you, yes. You said three hours five hours ago.”

“That damn tree took out a corner of the roof and four windows. Niagara Falls ran through the building half the night. Freaking controlled chaos this morning, because there’s too damn much money on the line to be closed on a Monday. Everybody was there.”

Garrett dropped into the leather executive chair behind the main desk, every line of his compact, athletic body radiating impatience. “Everybody was there
except,
of course, the future president of the company. Don’t think that wasn’t noticed, kid. Your father’s going to tear a chunk out of you the size of Texas when he gets his hands on you, I can promise you that.”

“There’s work to be done for the Foundation. There are lives at stake.”

“Sorry to tell you this, but sometimes the hunt has to take a backseat. When our resources are threatened here at home, a vampire halfway around the world gets a break.”

“How about one in fucking driving distance?”

This gave Garrett pause. His sharp gaze narrowed. “Did I miss an alert from the Grid?”

“This is way off the Grid, trust me. If the Grid knew about this, it would stroke out.”

“Skip the drama. If you’re sitting on something critical, why didn’t you say so?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Uncle. Maybe because you cut me off in mid-sentence when I called? And could it be you haven’t checked your voice mail yet today because you saw I called, and what could I possibly have to say that’s in any way important?”

Garrett sighed. “Very well then. Let’s hear what you’ve got and make it good.”

Jackson sat on the edge of the desk, turned the keyboard around, and typed the codes that brought up his research. He had put the final pieces together early this morning to complete a picture that would take the Foundation to maximum alert.

“We don’t have much time, but you’re going to have to hear this to fully appreciate it.”

He explained his new search methodology, the algorithms that scanned historical data for markers of vampire activity and connected them by proximity as well as similarities. As the trail of red dots began to plot out on the screen, Garrett retrieved a pair of reading glasses from a drawer and leaned forward as he put them on.

“About two decades is as far back as we can go before the data becomes too fragmented, but there’s no reason to think this activity pattern didn’t start much earlier. Centuries for all we know.” While Jackson called up various supporting documents and images on one screen, the dots kept popping up like drops of blood on the other, annotated with dates and numbers dead and missing, all along the worlds’ coastlines. Eventually, they crept up the eastern shores of South America, into the Caribbean and stopped at Grand Cayman, south of Cuba.

“While some of these were blips on the Grid, the lag time to get data from these remote places always kept the probability low. But over time, the pattern becomes obvious. Everything points to one or more vampires traveling, siring younglings as they go. Given the locations and time frames, I’d say by boat.”

Garrett dropped his readers on the desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right. Nice detective work. But the last bit of information you have here is six months old. What does any of this have to do with . . . driving distance?”

“Possibly a great deal.”

“Possibly? Jack, I’ve been up all night and all day. I don’t have the patience to play games.”

“And I’ve never been more serious. About anything. There’s more. Lots more. Do I have your attention or am I doing this on my own?”

Garrett let out a long breath then slid his glasses back on his nose. “Continue.”

Jackson forced himself to calm down. This was too important. “Going north, Cuba would have been the next logical place for them to strike, but that’s a digital blind spot for us. And here in Florida . . .” He trailed off meaningfully.

His uncle gave him an exasperated look. “There’s no way you can spin the gang war killings to fit this.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. A moot point, in any case.” Jackson still believed those fatalities to be vampire victims, but he had no concrete evidence to pin them on his primary suspect. Which didn’t matter since said suspect was practically in custody already.

He pressed a key, and the blood-spattered map zoomed in on one particular dot marking a tiny Caribbean island. “St. Barts is where things get interesting. What happened there and when it happened nail it down as a place where our traveling ghouls dropped anchor.”

“Over a year ago.”

Jackson ignored the dismissive snort and spoke with all the conviction of certain knowledge. This was so much more than a youngling vampire playing at being human, and he would make damn sure Garrett understood the full magnitude of what he had uncovered. To that end, he laid out his evidence as though in a court of law.

Exhibit A was Jean-Paul Marchant, successful restaurateur and father of three, a handsome, olive-skinned man of middle years who was found by his wife one fine evening without his head. Three weeks later, Jean-Paul’s youngest daughter, Anastasie, met the same fate.

Garrett’s face went hard with disgust as he studied the gruesome crime scene photos. He would recognize them, as Jackson had, as classic vampire victims. “What a waste.”

“It gets better.” Jackson called up Exhibit B, an image of a woman whose voluptuous beauty and seductive smile was instantly recognizable even to a pop culture caveman like Garrett Striker.

“That’s that actress who got killed there, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Jeovana Sebastini, Italy’s rising star.” Her naked body washing up on a posh Caribbean beach and the investigation that followed had been international front-page news for a month. Several people had been arrested. No one was ever charged.

“Don’t tell me she—”

“Was found dead only a day before Anastasie Marchant. Not a drop of blood left in her. She did get to keep her head though, even if her throat was a mess.”

He schooled his face into neutrality before paging to Exhibit C. The Dominic he had met was nothing like the tanned and grinning man on the screen now, an equally delighted Jeovana hanging off his arm.

“This is Dominic Marchant, age twenty-seven, Jean-Paul’s only son. He was reported missing, presumably kidnapped, the same night his father died.” Jackson cycled through a few more images of the couple, mostly long-lens paparazzi shots, each racier than the last. His jaw clenched at the thought of Cassidy in the same house as this cocky Caribbean gigolo. Even if the guy weren’t a bloodsucker, Jackson wouldn’t want him anywhere near her.

Garrett rubbed his jaw, considering. “So she had a connection to that family when they became victims and became one herself. But why would anyone think her boy toy was kidnapped?”

“Retribution. The week before Dominic disappeared, he came to his sister’s defense and ended up killing a guy with ties to the Columbian cartels. With his bare hands.” Jackson paused, relishing the rare flash of surprise on his uncle’s face. “Officially Dominic died about six months after that while trying to escape his captors. Supposedly there was a gunfight at sea, his body never recovered of course.”

Garrett looked dubious. “What are you implying? That he was turned? You do realize that makes no sense, right, kid?”

“Compared to a Columbian cartel keeping a prisoner on a yacht for six months before blowing his brains out?” To say nothing of a vampire cooking up such an elaborate ruse in the first place.

“That family lost two people to vampires, and the actress clearly got caught in the middle. That can’t be a youngling’s doing. The sire would never allow it.”

“I’m thinking the sire didn’t have a choice.” He flipped to yet another image of the human Dominic, this time looking fierce in a wide stance and draped in the full black and white garb of the Aikido martial arts discipline. His opponent hung suspended in mid-air before him, tumbling, on his way to a hard impact with the mat. “Our suspect here’s an Aikido black belt. Highly trained and disciplined. Though I’m guessing he lost it when he killed one of the guys he caught raping his sister, Anastasie.”

Jackson said it without emotion, but somewhere in the pit of his stomach bloomed the reluctant recognition that he could well do the same for his sister, Samantha. He nearly had for Cassidy. He shoved the wellspring of sympathetic rage back down beneath the icy calm of the hunt. “If you add that skill set to the strength and speed of a vampire and what you get is—”

“A youngling on steroids.”

“Operating independently of a sire, yes. Or at least trying to, and good enough at it to not get himself killed by either the sire or anyone else who might object.” Like that crank that had attacked Cassidy on the beach. That one seemed too unhinged to be the mastermind of such a sophisticated pattern, much less sire someone like Dominic. But chances were good his presence was no accident. He had to be part of whatever game was afoot between the youngling and his sire. He had to be part of their nest.

“Interesting theory.”

“No, not theory. Fact. And not even the most interesting one.” Jackson leaned forward, moving in on his virtual kill. “I’ve seen evidence that he’s a master compeller and can already feed without taking lives.” He would have to if he operated without a sire to control him, and that he fed from Cassidy was indisputable. No bloodsucker would waste such an opportunity. Plus, she had looked a tad pale last night. Then there was the whole cigarette smoke thing. No vampire could stand being near the stuff, yet this one sucked it down on purpose. What the fuck was that about?

“It takes years for them to master those skills,” Garrett said, searching his nephew’s face with increasing interest. “Unless—”

“Unless the sire is stronger than anything we’ve seen in a hundred years.”

Garrett became still.

The young ones, hungry and undisciplined, were easy to track, trap, and destroy. But the old ones were the Foundation’s ultimate targets. They could vanish for centuries, killing at leisure and spawning armies of new monsters to prey on the living. They often passed great strength to their younglings, making them equally difficult to locate and kill within a very short time. Old vampires were like an undetected cancer in the body of humanity. The mere suspicion of one in their sights was monumental.

It took under half a minute on the grandfather clock before Garrett added it all up. “You’re saying an ancient vampire is traveling the world by boat, and . . . is here? How can you be so sure?”

Jackson smiled his satisfaction as he glanced at Dominic on the screen, then back to the man who looked at him as though he had never seen his nephew before.

“You and Dominic should meet. Today.”

Chapter 18

Unsolved Mysteries

Dominic woke, still drifting in the peace of his conviction that he would never wake again, and decided Jackson Striker was useless. Either the man didn’t understand half of what he gave him credit for, or his intentions were not as hostile as they appeared. As the latter seemed unlikely, Jackson must be as clueless as he was useless.

Dominic allowed himself a groan of sheer misery, but stopped when he smelled the aromas of a kitchen in high gear accompanied by the familiar clattering of pots and utensils. Beneath it all, Cassidy’s heartbeat thumped strong and steady, relaxed as she worked against a backdrop of American country music.

With a smile, he recalled the passionate kiss in her bed this morning. She may well remember it as a dream, but remember it she would. So did he. He also remembered how close he had come yet again to doing her irreparable harm.

His good spirits fading, he sat up and looked around. No trace of Serge. He had half-feared the lunatic would carry him away and bury him in the dune, but there hadn’t been time. Dominic was still here, another night alive and faced with a quandary he could no longer escape. He wanted her—
needed
her—like living things require air. That these feelings were mutual to some degree was obvious from her dreams, her touch . . . her kiss. But what if she acted on those impulses while wide-awake? He could not risk responding to her. He could not be a true lover and mate to her, and it was unforgivably selfish to seduce her away from a man who could, even if that man was an idiot. But he had no idea of what to do about it.

He shrugged into his sweats and a fresh T-shirt, finger-combed his hair and confirmed the presence of the cigarettes and lighter in his pocket before heading for the kitchen.

He got as far as the hall.

The enormous black cat lay flat on its belly, pawing with intent savagery beneath the door to the laundry closet and oblivious to the blood-drinker standing over it. Dominic watched it work and felt a pang of sympathy for the little hunter’s frustration. Prey was so close, yet just out of reach.

He helpfully pushed open the door and the cat pounced. Then hissed. And growled. A long black ribbon of muscle leapt out and coiled down the hall. The little hunter bounded after the snake, swatting and snapping at the slithering tail.

“Eddie? What’re you doing?”

Before Cassidy could round the kitchen counter, Dominic moved with lightning speed and grabbed the intruder’s head. The snake spiraled around his arm, frantic. The cat looked up at him, astonished.

“You’re welcome,” he told it.

Cassidy skidded to a halt. “Oh, my God. How did that get in here?”

Realizing what had happened, the cat thought better of insisting on its prize. It trotted away, moving upstairs with an unhappy grumble. Dominic watched it go with a rush of unexpected pleasure at the little brother’s irritation instead of terror. Something had changed, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t the cat.

“I don’t even want to know how you can touch that thing,” Cassidy said with a shudder. “Well, don’t just stand there. Get it out of here.” She made shooing motions toward the door as she retreated.

When Dominic stepped onto the porch, he spotted Serge moving in the shadows. His face popped over the rail, all smiles.

“Blood-child, you survived the day.”

Dominic tossed the snake into the bushes behind Serge. “You were wrong, old fool,” he said under his breath. “Jackson is even more useless than you.”

He didn’t wait for a reply before returning indoors.

“Thanks for catching that,” Cassidy called over her shoulder as she worked at the stove.

“Thank your cat. He found it.”

He moved closer. Two pots boiled vigorously, one steaming vegetables and another heaving with a sack of boil-in-bag rice. The oven, too, was in use. Leaning sideways, he spied four servings of salmon and crabmeat roll-ups, ready-made by the local supermarket judging by the discarded packaging on the counter. An enormous leap forward from macaroni and cheese. He was inclined to be impressed.

“I know. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t be so good at tracking those things down. If I don’t see it, I’d be happy not knowing about half the stuff that gets in here.”

Dominic’s smile tasted bitter in his mouth. “I’m sure that some things he finds . . . you do not see.”

She gave him a searching look but said nothing.

He opened the refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of Perrier. Of all the things he had enjoyed before, this was the only thing left to him. More or less. He would have preferred the softer San Benedetto sparkling water from his restaurant days, but this worked well enough. The bubbles soothed him, and he found that water lessened the need for blood to satisfy thirst as well as hunger. His Perrier habit saved lives.

For a while, he watched her poke at the rice bag and the vegetables as though the constant attention would speed their cooking. Muscles flexed beneath the sun-darkened skin of her arms, and her half-gathered hair brushed bare shoulders and flashed copper highlights. The navy blue tank top hugged her torso, delineating the strong lines of her back. A skirt of tie-died turquoise reached to her ankles. Sand still clung to her heels.

He took a tentative breath, scenting for her living heat. The baking fish smothered the air, but he did catch the distinctive fragrance of her blood—and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Merde
, he was hungry.

It would be better to leave. Now. Let her think he was still put out about the events of last night. Let her believe he was moody, temperamental, and reprehensible. All that was true enough and would only be fair to her. But his need to be near her rooted him to the spot. He needed to hear her speak her mind tonight, to hear what conclusions she had reached during the day.

But she held her silence, preoccupied with her cooking.

“No microwave?” he prompted. “No macaroni and cheese?”

“I know you don’t like either.” She hesitated. “I doubt this is up to your standards, but I’m hoping you’ll cut me some slack.”

“It is a commendable effort. And one of quantity. Are you expecting company?”

“Why? So you can pick a fight with them, too?” she wondered without turning from the stove.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, half-crossing his arms, swirling the bottle as he struggled to think of the apology she deserved and which he was unable to voice. He wasn’t at all sorry for antagonizing the man who claimed her, and he would not stand here and say otherwise.

“You’re still upset.”

Her shoulders relaxed a little. “No. I’m not. I should be. But I’m not.”

He made no effort to hide his surprise.

Glancing at him, she twisted her mouth into a sour line. “Jackson was as big an ass as you were. I have never seen him like that, but I have some idea where he’s coming from. What I can’t figure out, though . . . is you.”

“
Moi
?”

“
Oui.
You.” She turned to face him now, clutching the wooden spoon in one hand like a weapon. “What were you thinking? After I asked you to stay out of sight, why were you there anyway? And why did you provoke Jackson like that?”

“Is that truly such a mystery?”

She shook her head. “I know what it looked like, but . . . no. I don’t know. I thought we were friends. Friends don’t go out of their way to wreck each other’s relationships.”

“Is that what I have done?”

“Is that what you wanted to do?”

He had no answer to that.

“So what was that?” she asked again, her voice soft with confusion.

He emptied the bottle while wondering what he could tell her that was at once true and comprehensible. He needed her, and felt as protective of her as he ever had of anyone—even if what he had to protect her from was himself.

That last was no small feat. Only two weeks ago, this scene here with her so close and emotionally raw and him not having hunted in two days would have been unthinkable. His ability to deny the beast right now was as remarkable in its own way as her attempt at an actual meal.

And somehow, miraculously, they had done this for each other.

He chose his words with care. “I wanted to make sure that this man is worthy . . . of my friend. She deserves to be cherished.”

Her lips flattened, keeping the thoughts whirling behind her eyes from spilling out of her mouth. What finally emerged was, “You don’t think he is worthy of me, do you?”

“I think he means well for you.” The only positive thing he could get himself to say about the man.

Cassidy considered him as though weighing facts known only to her. Then she nodded, a shadow of regret passing over the blue oceans of her eyes. “Friends. All right then.” She turned back to her pots and away from what was really on her mind. And his. “Well, I still think you were a jerk, my friend. But so was Jackson, and he’s come to his senses, I think. He came by here earlier to apologize in person.”

“Did he?”

“He even brought that creep of an uncle with him and made him apologize, too, for how he treated me that night at the house, if you can believe that.”

Suddenly Dominic wasn’t sure what to believe about Jackson Striker. “Would it not have been easier to call?”

“Ya think? That was my question, too.” She fished the plump-to-bursting bag of rice out of the water. “He said they were in the area of my office, and when they didn’t find me there, they came here. God, that was awkward.”

Pouring out the water, she sliced open the bag and emptied the rice back into the pot. “I managed to get off a little early today so I could get this organized. I hope you’re hungry.”

“Starving,” he said, envisioning Jackson’s throat.

“Oh, good. The salmon is almost done.”

He blinked. “What? What are you doing?”

“I thought that was obvious?” He stared at her, dumbfounded, and she continued as though speaking to a slow child. “I’m cooking dinner? Jerk or not, I owe you after all you’ve done for me. So tonight, my friend, I’m going to feed
you
for a change.”

He choked down the impulse to laugh. Or cry. He wasn’t sure which. He settled on a tight, “I cannot.”

“You just said you’re starving.”

“I have to be somewhere.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about that, too.”

“About . . . that?”

“Remember I said I wanted to help you?”

“You cannot. No one can.”

“Well, what if I can?”

His lips twitched. She looked so grim and sure of herself, as though made invincible by the might of her cooking spoon. “You do
not
know what you are talking about,
ma amie
.”

She turned off the stove and oven and came close enough for him to feel her living heat push at him. “What if I do?”

“Then you are a fool for still being here.” All his nerves stood on end.
Did
she know? No, she couldn’t know. She wouldn’t offer him regular food if she did. In fact he’d be a pile of ash by the front door if she knew.

“No argument there,” she said, further confounding him. She put down the spoon and pressed her hands together in front of her. “Hear me out, please. I think I can help you. But I’ll need your help to do it, and I’m guessing that won’t be easy for you.”

Her heartbeat reverberated in his skull. Hunger sharpened to a fine point in his gut. His voice strangled in his throat. “Outside.”

From the porch, he scanned the shadows for Serge, Cassidy’s guardian angel, but the pest was nowhere to be seen.
Merde.

He lit a cigarette, feeling her watch him, praying there wasn’t enough light for human eyes to see his shaking hands. As she couldn’t abide smoke, she kept her distance, though she obviously wasn’t pleased about this.

“What is it you think you know?” he said when he felt somewhat sure of himself again.

“I . . . did some research today. For a story. I found some things from St. Barth.”

Alarm zinged through him. “What story?”

“The local gang war.” She fell into an expectant silence.

His mind reeled with the implications, refusing to consider the much more unsettling fact of her mentioning his island home. “Why are you writing about that?”

“I have a suspicion that it isn’t a gang war at all. I think there is something else going on.” She hesitated, glancing at the cigarette. “Will you . . . can we talk about this?”

He flicked a blob of ash to the ground. She knew nothing. He was hungry. He should be gone. “What do you believe this has to do with me?”

“Because of what happened to your family.”

He gripped the porch railing so tight the wood creaked in protest. Venomous mists of memory rose to engulf him. The beast churned, cold and hungry. Deliberately keeping his movements to a minimum, he drew hard at the cigarette.

He should have told her to be still, to forget whatever she thought she knew or wanted to do. He should have bent her to his will on this. His sanity depended on it. Instead it was her voice weaving a spell around him.

“I found the articles about your father and sister in
Le Journal.
Had to use the online translator again, but I got most of it. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Still he said nothing.

“I have a theory, Dominic, that what happened there and what’s happening here are related. The . . . well, there are similarities. And there were a few more deaths like it on other islands around that time as well.”

He should leave, but his morbid fascination belonged only to her earnest, innocent voice.

Organized crime, she believed, a violent cartel making a play for international markets by removing all opposition. His father must have stumbled on a smuggling operation run by one of his suppliers and paid with his life. Since he, Dominic, had been reported abducted, she reasoned that they wanted to use him for their own ends—as a hacker perhaps or for his martial arts skills. Likely they used his sister Anastasie to coerce him, perhaps Jeovana, too, for Cassidy had found the paparazzi pictures of them together. She believed these women were killed to force his hand, but he got free and now hid from these mysterious perpetrators, probably to keep what remained of his family safe.