Oliver's Hunger (Scanguards Vampires #7) (4 page)

Gripping the steering wheel tighter, he veered around another corner, finally leaving the Bayview behind him and entering the South of Market area. Normally, this was where he fed, but for some inexplicable reason, he’d been drawn to the seediest of neighborhoods tonight. Was somebody trying to tell him something? Was his subconscious mind trying to show him how he would end up if he didn’t get a grip on himself?

Oliver pushed the thought aside to make way for a more pressing issue: the girl on his back seat. First, he had to make sure that she was all right, then he needed to find out what had happened, and eventually he would have to erase her memory, particularly if she was aware who’d been hunting her: a vampire. It didn’t matter who the guy was, whether Oliver knew him or not, because it was an unwritten rule to guard a vampire’s identity at all times. Humans weren’t allowed to find out about the immortal creatures living in their midst.

Oliver threw a look over his shoulder, but the girl didn’t stir. He recalled the way she’d looked at him with her beautiful almond shaped eyes that were as dark as the night itself, how she had pleaded with him to help her. He had already decided not to get involved in whatever her problem was, but then she’d surprised him with her offer.

Had she really meant it? She must have been scared out of her wits to offer a stranger sex, just so he’d save her. And by God, he would have taken it, but now? He shook his head. He couldn’t take the offer now. It would be unethical.

Unethical?
the little devil sitting on his shoulder asked.
What’s unethical about having sex with a hot chick?

And she was hot. Long, black hair, a slender, delicate figure, small, but well-formed boobs, and then those eyes: tilted upwards, yet large, their irises dark as night, yet brilliant in their reflection. She was Chinese, he guessed, but he’d barely heard an accent when she’d spoken, so she was probably a second generation immigrant and belonged to the large Chinese community of San Francisco. And she was more beautiful than any other woman he’d ever encountered. When she’d made her offer of sex, his heart had stopped for a moment, because he couldn’t believe his luck. This beautiful girl was willing to have sex with him?

Oliver gritted his teeth. Everything was wrong about taking advantage of a frightened woman, even though his cock didn’t seem to care about that fact. No, that particular appendage was more than willing to hold her to her promise as soon as she awoke.

“Ah, crap,” he hissed under his breath.

For once, he should have listened to Blake and stayed at home and drunk the bottled blood in the pantry instead. Then there would be two fewer things he had to worry about right now: one, he wouldn’t feel so damn guilty about having fed from an innocent, and two, he wouldn’t have an unconscious young woman in the back of his van, whose brains he wanted to fuck out as soon as she came to.

Oliver turned onto his street and glanced at the mansion he called home. Only the lights over the entrance were illuminated, otherwise the house was dark. It appeared that Blake had gone out, since it was too early for him to be in bed already. Ever since Blake had joined them after finding out that Quinn and Rose were his fourth great-grandparents, he kept more or less the same hours the vampires kept. He slept until early afternoon and stayed up into the early hours of the morning. Soon, he’d most likely have adjusted completely and remain awake all night.

Oliver operated the garage door opener and drove inside, parking the car in its usual spot next to the stairs that led up into the house. When he switched off the engine, quiet suddenly descended around him. He opened the car door and stepped out. No sound came from upstairs. Just as well. He didn’t want to have to explain to Blake what had happened, when he didn’t even know himself what he’d gotten into. With some luck, everything would be back to normal by the time Blake returned, and his nosy half-brother wouldn’t be the wiser.

Walking to the van’s sliding door, he opened it and looked at his passenger. She still lay there without moving. He bent down to her, verifying that she was breathing—she was—then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her upstairs.

With his elbow he switched on the lights in the hallway, then headed for the living room, where he did the same. Gently he laid her onto the large sectional, snatching the woolen blanket that lay over the armrest, and covered her with it.

Then he stood there, looking down at her. When he’d been human, he’d taken care of injured colleagues often enough, but his help had mostly constituted of feeding them his blood so their vampire bodies could heal. While he knew that vampire blood too had healing properties, he was unsure what to do right now. Not knowing what the woman suffered from, he didn’t want to take such drastic steps as feeding her his blood. What if she woke while he did so? It would only make things worse.

As he shoved a shaking hand through his hair, he noticed the girl move. Instantly he bent down to her and realized that she was shaking. It was clear that she had the chills.

“Fuck!” he cursed.

He could only imagine that the other vampire had taken too much blood and weakened her. When another chill went through her body, Oliver lowered himself onto the couch, took her into his arms and held her close to him, but her shivers didn’t cease.

He needed help. Professional help.

Quickly he pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

When the call connected, he made his request. “Maya, you need to come to the house. I need a doctor.”

“Oliver?” she asked in surprise. “Are you hurt?”

“Not I. A human. Come quickly.”

5

Cain glanced back at Blake who stood next to Cain’s car. He’d been just about to leave for his patrol when the human had shown up, asking for help. “I have no idea where he is,” Cain said to his human colleague.

Blake frowned. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Then he shoved a shaky hand through his thick dark hair. “What now?”

Cain had been witness to more than one argument between Blake and Oliver, and this wasn’t the first time in the last couple of weeks that Blake had asked him for help tracking down his out-of-control half-brother.

“You worry about him. I didn’t think you guys got on.”

“I care about what he does to those humans. Next time he’ll kill somebody. You should have seen him tonight. He was like a junkie about to lose it.” He let out an angry huff. “Quinn and Rose should have never left for England. How do they expect me to keep him in check? I’m only human!”

“Way I see it, it’s not for you to keep Oliver in check, nor for Quinn or Rose. Oliver has to conquer this all by himself.”

“Then why did they ask me to take care of him in the first place?”

Cain shrugged. “Beats me.”

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get that lust for blood under control?”

Cain closed his eyes for a moment, searching the darkness for an answer, but found none. “I don’t know. When I woke one night, I just
was
. There was no overwhelming urge for blood, which makes me think that I’d been a vampire for a long time already before I lost my memory. So, I can’t give you any insight there.”

He kept his tone light, belying the fact that every time he thought of his past and came up against a wall of nothing, of impenetrable emptiness, his gut clenched. Something was just beyond that darkness, too far to reach for it, yet close enough to sense its existence.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry,” Blake said then let his eyes survey the area.

Cain waved him off. “So what do you want me to do?” Cain asked, leaving it up to Blake to make a decision. This was not his fight.

“Can you help me find him? You know better where a vampire would go.”

Involuntarily, Cain chuckled. “If I knew that, I’d be able to find all the crazies that roam this city.”

“What do you mean?”

He contemplated his response but considering that Blake was a family member of one of Scanguards’ directors, Cain didn’t think he was speaking out of turn by letting him in on some news. “We have some problems right now. There have been incidents of vampires going berserk. As if they were on drugs or something. Total whack jobs.”

Blake squared his shoulders. “I haven’t heard anything about that. Drugged how? I thought drugs don’t have any effect on vampires.”

Cain nodded. “They don’t. That’s why this is so odd. Scanguards got the first reports about seven or eight weeks ago. The mayor hired us to keep an eye on it.”

Shocked, Blake stared at him. “The mayor? You mean the humans know about vampires? Fuck!”

“No, of course not! The mayor is a hybrid. I’m surprised you don’t know that. He’s like Portia, Zane’s wife, half-vampire, half-human. Guess that’s why he’s even able to be a mayor, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to perform his duties during the day.”

“I had no idea. What does he want us to do?”

“Us?” Cain grinned, secretly pleased at the human’s eagerness to get some action. “Only vampires are assigned to this job. Humans are barred for obvious reasons. So don’t get your hopes up. Dealing with those stoned-out-of-their-skull vampires isn’t an easy job. So far, we’ve always gotten there too late, and could only clean up after them.”

“Shit. What else do you know?”

“Not much. We haven’t been able to catch one and question him, but from what other vampires tell us . . . ”

“What other vampires?”

“Civilians, informants; vampires who alert us to what’s going on. They say that those crazies babble on about some blood that’s like a drug. Total bullshit if you ask me.”

Blake hooked his thumbs into his belt. “What do you think it is then? What’s driving them crazy?”

Cain looked past him into the dark. “Good old bloodlust. Nothing else. If they tell you anything else, it’s just an excuse to cover up their own weaknesses.”

“But how do you spot it? Can’t you prevent it from happening?” Blake wanted to know.

“It’s not easy to detect, unless it’s already in an advanced stage. The affected vampire will get very erratic; his reasoning becomes illogical, his lies more daring. And his aggression toward others increases.”

Blake swallowed hard. “You mean like Oliver? He’s gotten very irrational. And aggressive.”

“I don’t know, Blake, maybe you’re just projecting things on him. But I don’t see it with Oliver. He’s just trying to find his way. Give him a chance. Don’t suffocate him. Nothing good will come of it.”

“You didn’t see him tonight. He wasn’t himself. He was like a wild animal, ready to rip my throat out.”

Cain lifted an eyebrow. Blake was probably exaggerating a bit. The human certainly had that tendency. “I’ve gotta go and do my job. I’ll be late for my patrol.”

“You don’t believe me? Listen, Cain, what if Oliver flips and does something stupid? And what if you and I had the power to prevent it, but we didn’t? How would you feel then?”

Cain sighed. He hated it when somebody tried to appeal to his conscience. He knew he had one, but for some reason it felt like an old unused muscle that had difficulty reacting. As if he had put that particular part of himself on ice for way too long. Almost as if he hadn’t been allowed to have a conscience in his former life. But now, it reared its ugly head.

“Fine, we’ll go look for him.”

But he didn’t have much hope of finding Oliver. A vampire who didn’t want to be found was as good as invisible.

6

Oliver yanked the entrance door open before Maya had even reached the top of the stairs that lead up to it. Wearing a white doctor’s coat over her jeans and T-shirt and carrying a small black bag, she rushed inside, barely glancing at him. Surprised at her outfit, he let his eyes wander over her. Maybe this was exactly what Maya wore when she performed her medical duties. Not that he would know. He’d never visited the little medical office she ran from the basement of her home.

“Where?”

He motioned to the living room. “In there.”

Oliver followed her as she walked inside. When she reached the sofa and dropped down next to the girl, Maya turned her head to him.

“A girl? Figures! What did you do this time?”

She didn’t wait for an answer and opened her bag, pulling out her blood pressure kit.

“I didn’t do anything to her. She was like that when I found her.” Well, not exactly. She
had
been conscious at first.

She tossed him a scolding look as she wrapped the sleeve of the blood pressure kit around the girl’s upper arm and pumped air into it. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not blind.”

Maya pointed to the girl’s neck where two puncture wounds were still clearly visible. Blood had crusted over them after he’d put pressure on them earlier.

“I didn’t do that!” He huffed angrily. “You don’t think I did that, do you?”

Her eyes narrowed before she turned back to her patient and placed the stethoscope at the bend of her elbow. “I don’t want to hear any of it now. Not in front of her. You and I will talk afterwards.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Another word out of you now and I’ll call Gabriel and have him deal with you. You want that?”

Shit! Not only did Maya not believe him, she was going to rat him out to Gabriel—for something he hadn’t even done! But he knew better than to argue with her now. He needed her to stabilize the girl. And once she was awake, she could confirm his story and tell Maya that she’d been running from another vampire, not from him.

“I thought Gabriel was in New York.”

“He is, but it won’t take long for him to come back.”

Oliver clamped his jaw together. “When she wakes up, she’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”

“
If
she wakes up.” Maya removed the stethoscope from her ears and unwrapped the blood pressure device. “Her blood pressure is dangerously low. What did you do to her? Drain her?”

Had the other vampire taken too much of her blood? “What if somebody took too much blood? What would you do?”

Maya glared at him, clearly not liking the way he’d framed his question. But he’d be damned if he admitted something he hadn’t done.