Exsanguinate (21 page)

“NOOOOO! Stop!” I screamed back at him.

“Bollocks! I almost had him. He’s using a mobile IP that’s refreshing every time the server calls the location from the broad bands. I’m not able to pinpoint his location.”

“What we do now?” My eyes pleaded for this nightmare to end. Khaldon glanced at his watch. “What time does Fed Ex usually deliver?”

“I don’t know – usually around eleven in the morning, I guess. I honestly don’t pay that much attention to it,” I said, flatly defeated.

“I have just enough time to go meet that tart at Mordez-Moi and try to find out what the hell she’s going on about.”

I turned and looked at him. He swallowed and grabbed me by the arms to face him.

He took a deep breath. “In full disclosure – Amicula and I at one time dated. But that was several mortal lifetimes before you.”

I looked at him and willed his brain to collapse into his skull. I was so done and over this day.

He backpedaled from my expression. “It was centuries before you ever came into my life. We’ve barely been acquaintances since that time. I hated the fact I was assigned to her team under Stovall. Amicula is playing us both for the game and I’m going to find out what’s what.”

“You need to go.” Against my better judgment, I trusted him. “Amicula might be the missing link we need in order to help find them.”

* * *

W
e drove back
to my penthouse, and I found a surprise waiting at the front desk wrapped in a red bow. Beano was in his crate with Stormy. As soon as he saw me, Beano barked and rocked the hallway. Stormaggedon barked in her loudest big girl voice to tell me how excited she was to see me too.

Bennie the night watchman explained. “A very thick Scottish accented chap dropped Beano and Stormy off. Good thing I know these pups, or I wouldn’t have let them stay. Couldn’t understand a word he said.”

“That would be Torchy,” Khaldon explained.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Seters.” Bennie shook Khaldon’s hand after I made formal introductions. “I sure am glad you were able to help Miss Cheyenne when she was in the hospital.”

Khaldon reached out to take my hand. “My pleasure, Bennie. It’s good to know she has people watching out for her here.”

We continued up to my penthouse, and I softly closed the door behind us.

He lifted my chin to make me look into his eyes. “I knew you didn’t want to be alone right now, so I asked Torchy to bring them by for you.”

I hugged him around the neck.

“I’m sorry, m’lady. I didn’t want us to happen like this. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell you. I kinda hoped maybe you might fall in love with Khaldon, ya know, and forget that Roxas ever existed.”

Words escaped me. I rubbed my hands over his cheeks and kissed his mouth.

He clasped his hands over mine and we touched foreheads. “Get some rest, love. You must be absolutely knackered.”

I loved listening to his British accent. I could listen to him all day. Hearing it close up in my ears though somehow managed to have an unanticipated effect on me. Albeit, delightfully surprising.

His breath tickled my neck in his whisper. “Let me go so I can get back to you as soon as I can. I should only be gone an hour or so.” He kissed me once again. Lightly his tongue brushed my lips. Khaldon pulled away and I immediately ached for him. Before the elevator door closed he held his arm blocking the sensor. His smile reached all the way up into his eyes. “Oh how the Norns have twisted a mean fate upon us, my love. I bid thee adieu till it be morrow.”

With that – the door closed and he was gone.

K
haldon opened
the door to meet Amicula at Club Mordez-Moi! with trepidation. She would be there and he hoped to locate her before she spotted him. Slim chance though. This bar seethed with vampires, human servants, and wannabes. Most likely her hawk eyes would recognize him immediately. Across the bar Khaldon spotted her with the chair positioned to observe the door. Amicula held up a glass in a toast. Grumbling words harsh enough to carve his path, people cringed away as Khaldon made toward her.

Several hands reached out to Khaldon to lure him into a conversation, but he declined as he narrowed his approach. Khaldon had earned his reputation as an easy-going guy who normally was quite congenial. However, this night was different. He needed to find out what Amicula knew about Cheyenne’s sisters and passed the outstretched hands with no apologies. Could he woo Amicula into thinking he still carried a torch for her, or even a small burning ember?

Amicula Darkrose sat casually in her well-worn metallic chair. Two drinks on the table and an untouched basket of spicy bat wings completed the scene. Amicula, never one to disappoint a crowd, dressed in an off-the-shoulder, form-fitting dress which left nothing to the imagination. Khaldon knew right off this meeting wasn’t about the cleanup or the missing O’Cuinn sisters. This was a seduction ploy. Perhaps he had a better shot at getting information than he had thought. He needed to play it cool, play it right.

It amazed him that, she couldn’t get over him, even after so many centuries. Sure they had an enjoyable couple of decades together, but that was it. Her constant bloody thirst for whores bored him to death. He wanted to learn technology and move towards a different direction in life, evolve, while she had grandiose visions of conquering the world. Why she couldn’t let go of their drunken trysts of the past he would never understand.

A stunningly beautiful woman, Amicula always packaged herself as if she were freshly pressed from a fashion magazine. Khaldon remembered how her voluptuous beauty escaped no one, including himself, but that vision came with a price he wasn’t willing to pay – again.

Don’t do it. She’s just a mesmerizing snake full of poisonous charms. Don’t trust a word that comes from her succulent mouth.

Khaldon knew Amicula’s darker side – intimately. Past experiences of misdeeds replayed in his mind as silent movie credits rolled past his eyes. Seduction wasn’t her only goal for the evening. It was her cover.

“Good evening, my dear. You’re looking ravishing, as usual. What in the world did you want to discuss tonight that we couldn’t talk about at the coven meeting tomorrow?”

“Why, Khaldon, I want nothing more than an evening of your time.” Amicula extended her hand to him. “Well, to be honest, I want more than just an evening, but that would just be a yummy appetizeaser now wouldn’t it.” She danced her eyes over his face and sent waves of vampiric pheromone through the air.

Khaldon gingerly took her hand and kissed her wrist, never taking his eyes off her. He sat across the table leaning in to make an impression of crossing personal space between them. He waited to hear the screech of wooden chairs move around them to turn and look at where the alluring aroma originated. Amicula gestured to the champagne she had in a glass waiting his arrival.

“You know I’m a reformed man.” Khaldon chuckled. “I’m afraid my answer will be the same tonight as it was the last time we had this conversation.” His smile oozed charm while his words told truths.

“Oh, really now. I do love a delicious challenge. They’re such wicked fun, don’t you think?”

“So, why have you called me out here in the middle of the night to talk about sisters?” Khaldon cleared his throat, trying to figure out the ruse. “I didn’t know you had any sisters.”

“Oh Khaldon, you always were the card.” Amicula laughed. “I don’t wish to talk about my sisters or my cousins. I want to discuss with you something especially vital. Something my Auntie has entrusted me with and I would very much like your help in completing.”

“But …” Khaldon began, only to be cut off.

Amicula shushed him with her finger across his mouth. “My Auntie has requested my return to South America several times, and I keep telling her I will be along soon.” She drew her long fingernail down over his lips.

He looked at her out of the corners of his eye as he waved down a barkeep.

“You see, Khaldon, Auntie wants me to bring you back to help sire and train an elite fighting force to ensure protection for all Vampyre.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t quite grasp the reference to the sisters if you want me to go to South America with you.” Khaldon scrunched up his eyebrows in question and non-understanding. “What do you mean to sire a new fighting force?”

“The O’Cuinn sisters, silly. Soon we’ll have all three of them, and we’ll be able to use their ancient lineage to help birth the generals for the new army. The Queen has chosen you to do her bidding, and I need your help in seeing it through to completion.”

“Blimey, what in the world are you talking about?” Khaldon sat back against his seat, putting distance between them. Running his hands through his black hair, he stared holes through her eyes trying to figure out what in the bloody hell she was going on about.

Sire an army? Have all three sisters?

“Don’t you see, Khaldon? I risk angering my Auntie, the Queen, every time I deny her. Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is? I cannot deny her any longer. When we arrive before her, she will permit us powers unlike we have ever known. Together you and I could be stronger than our individual dynamics.”

Confused, Khaldon slowly nodded and pressed for more information. He needed to learn more without making it look as if he thought she was bat-shit crazy. “Yes, but what do the O’Cuinn sisters have to do with your new army? I still don’t follow. Are you referring to Cheyenne? Do you know where her sisters are being held captive?”

“I don’t want to bore you with the petty details.” The barkeep brought a ruddy ginger ale for Khaldon and set it down in front of him. Amicula ran her stiletto up and down Khaldon’s trouser leg. She flirted a smile. “Just know that the Queen’s plan is in full force and we are ready to begin. I wanted to formally extend my invitation to you tonight.”

“If you remember your history, Ami, I’m the direct descendant from a queen many times the power and cruelty of yours.” Khaldon eyed her. He shotgunned the ginger ale and slammed the glass back down on the table. “I know full well what she has, and does not have, to back up her edicts and how far she can push and pull her subjects.”

Amicula sat up a bit in her seat, whisked her hair out of her face, and repainted on her smile.

“Even though I am most flattered about your offer, I’m afraid I must decline.” Khaldon grabbed his cell phone and his keys out of his pocket in a gesture of exit. “I came here to talk about Cheyenne’s sisters. Not your personal interests, even if those interests have me in mind.”

“Could you excuse me, Khal for one teensy weensy minute, I have to use the ladies’ room.” Amicula took another sip from her champagne and dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin.

Khaldon felt the metaphorical ice forming on her words. He stood as she left the table and picked up the other glass of champagne considering a drink. “No,” he said to Amicula’s empty chair, “I don’t think I’ll drink anything poured before I got here.”

He turned in his seat to scan the bar, contemplating leaving before she returned. He drummed his fingers to the music.

What the hell is she talking about? A new elite military to protect Vampyre. Protect Vampyre from what? I hate this woman, always so damn cryptic.

“So glad to see you’re still here.” Amicula’s sudden return surprised him as she slid a hand across his back. “I agree with you, so for now we will discuss business. Enjoy a drink with me. Relax.”

“I don’t think so, Ami. I’m not drinking anymore, you know that.”

“Oh I forgot, how silly of me. I did order you another ruddy ginger if that’s all right?” She removed her arm and slid back into the chair beside him.

After the new drinks arrived, Khaldon sipped with some hesitation.

Amicula began the conversation about her email, by discussing how many additional sucklings had been found and slated for removal since Cheyenne.

Half way through the glass, Khaldon loosened up his shirt collar and ran his hand back through his hair again. The beginnings of a slight slur formed in Khaldon’s voice. “They aren’t any more sucklings. Cheyenne was the last one. Have you learned something of Cheyenne’s sisters or found their whereabouts?” Khaldon poured a glass of water from a pitcher left at the table. “Damn, it feels as if the temperature went up in here by fifty degrees.”

“Oh, Khaldon, you silly goose.” A slight smile parted Amicula’s lips. “The O’Cuinn sisters who went missing on the night of the attacks, they are the central part of the plan for the Queen. All we need to do now is collect Cheyenne, then we can get on with the program. She is, however, a little more complicated now that she has turned vampire.”

“I … I ‘m not following.” Khaldon held tight to the edge of the table and took in a look around him. His eyes landed on his glass. “Bloody hell, Ami, what did you put in that drink?”

“Really now, Khaldon, that isn’t polite. You know jolly well that Mordez Moi only serves top shelf blood to the likes of you and me.”

Khaldon tried to push away the glass but his hand was barely able to move it.

Amicula’s smirk found its way clear into her eyebrow. She leaned in to plant a kiss on his cheek and then whispered into his ear. “I love it when you call me Ami. But the issue at hand is what I had the server slip into your drink.”

“What?” Khaldon exclaimed as he attempted to spring from the table. The sudden motion only served to throw him off balance and almost to the floor. He grabbed onto her shoulder to steady himself. “Whaat di yoo put inmy drink todo thish?” He sat himself hard back onto the chair he just vacated.

“Oh, nothing you haven’t experienced before. You see my love, I have fantastical plans for you and me. I want our little tête-à-tête tonight to end in a manner that pleases us both. But since I knew you most likely weren’t going to cooperate, I changed the game. I knew Stovall assigning you to Cheyenne was going to cause a few minor inconveniences. My Auntie always gets what she wants. I suppose since you won’t remember it by the morning anyway, I can tell you all the nitty-gritty details on the ride to my condo. I’m rather looking forward to tonight. It will be a most pleasant experience, for me.”

“Whatter you taalkin aboot, Amickula?” Khaldon struggled against his words. “Why do this?”

“Fret not, my sweet.” Amicula stood up and put a shoulder under his arm to lift him up out of his chair. “All will be revealed in the morning. Let me help you to my car.” She broadcast to the watching neighboring table. “Boy, you are a big guy.” With a smile, she whispered to the nearest group of young vampires, “He never can mix blood with his ginger. Happens at least a couple times a year.” She winked at them. The younger vamps nodded in understanding.

The barkeep accepted more than a couple hundred dollar bills from Amicula as she slid them across the bar. She grabbed the barkeep’s hand and squeezed until his hand turned red. His face, arm, and hand froze in alarm.

“We were never here tonight. Right, my good man?”

The barkeep nodded one time to acknowledge her and her warning.

She winked at him. “Perhaps I can rely on you again in the future?”

He nodded once again. “Any time, my good lady. Any time.”

“Amikoola” was all Khaldon managed to say as she arranged him into the backseat of her waiting car.

Amicula barked off a command to her driver. “My condo at the beach, and come back for his car when you drop us off.”