Sunset Rising (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 5) (10 page)

“
You mean the one that
Caleb stumbled upon?” I asked meaningfully.

“
Yes, well,” Alton said.
“Such as it was.”

“
Mm-hm.”

He gave me a sober look. “In the meantime,
I’ll send my best investigators here to take up where we’re leaving
off. We’ll bide our time until the culprits are identified. Then we
act decisively.”

Admittedly, he made a good point about
sleeper cells; they had to be rooted out as quickly as they were
located. But the idea of leaving Caleb with our investigations
unresolved made me grit my teeth.

“
What if our nameless
entities return to New Haven?” I asked. “Or, worse yet, make
another attempt against Caleb?”

“
Caleb is in secure hands.
For the time being, we need to keep him occupied, as well as under
tighter scrutiny,” he replied. “He’ll be just fine.”

I looked sidelong at him.

“
Trust me,” he said. “I
know what I’m doing.”

Famous last words.

Chapter 8

Caleb

Despite feeling very tired, I had trouble
falling asleep while Kat was out on her adventure with Alton.

It wasn’t as if I was overly worried for her
safety, just merely concerned. To say that she was capable in her
own right was an understatement.

Kat was like a red-haired Wonder Woman; my
own personal super heroine. In fact, if anyone deserved their own
comic book, it would be her.

I was still parked on the couch, watching a
cartoon marathon on television when the front door opened.

I looked over the back of the couch to see
Paige, returning just past midnight from dropping Ethan off at the
airport.

“
Oh, I thought you were
Kat and Alton,” I said.

“
Well, you don’t have to
look so disappointed,” she said.

I let that go unanswered.

She plopped down onto the nearby recliner,
one leg casually draped over one armrest. To her credit, she waited
quietly for nearly fifteen minutes before harassing me.

“
What the hell sort of
crap are you filling your brain with now?” she asked.

“
McCluck,
” I said.

“
What the cluck?” she
asked.

I gave her a wan look. “Oh, fun—ny. That’s
my favorite cartoon you’re talking about there.”

“
Somebody, please shoot
me,” she said, pressing the back of her head further into the
recliner cushion.

“
Just watch it for a while
before passing judgment,” I said. “It grows on you.”

“
Whatever,” she said,
folding her arms before her.

To her credit, she watched TV for a time
before saying anything further.

“
Okay, so who’s the
chicken wearing the trench coat?”

“
He’s the hero, Bantam
McCluck, police detective,” I replied.

“
Right. And who’s he
beating up?” she asked.

“
Robbie the rooster,” I
said. “He’s one of the town’s biggest mobsters.”

“
What town?”

“
Barnville,” I
said.

She groaned and pressed her fingertips to
her temples. “I should’ve known.”

I pointedly ignored her.

“
Okay,” she said. “I need
popcorn and lots of beers for this.”

Around 2 a.m., Kat walked through the front
door, fully engaged in a mobile phone conversation. Most notably,
Alton wasn’t accompanying her.

“
No, just give me the
short version,” she said, casting off her black leather coat and
flinging it onto a chair as she proceeded upstairs. “Yeah, give me
the scoop on what happened in the Baltics, too.”

She never even paused to say hello.

More and more, I felt like even when Kat was
around she was mentally somewhere else.

Alton’s scale of endeavors seemed to be
growing exponentially. I couldn’t help feeling that it was becoming
less a venture and more of an epic as time passed.

And I felt less hopeful that things might
come to a conclusion anytime soon.

Maybe that’s why I was having trouble
sleeping, though there seemed to be no shortage of reasons for
that.

I would have scarcely
noticed the passage of time had it not been for the
McCluck
episodes ending
each half hour.

Finally, Kat came downstairs dressed in a
pair of sweatpants and T-shirt. She sat on the couch beside me,
curling her bare feet beneath her.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and
leaned in to kiss me.

“
I’m back,” she
said.

“
Really? I scarcely
noticed you’d left,” I said.

“
Why, Caleb, such
sarcasm,” she said. “It was just a quick errand, that’s
all.”

“
A mysterious errand,” I
said. “The nature of which is on a need to know only
basis.”

“
Caleb—”

“
And where the hell’s
Alton?” I asked, growing more agitated by the moment.

“
He has some last-minute
details to handle before returning to London to attend to urgent
matters,” she replied.

I shook my head over having to draw
information out of her like that.

“
Somebody’s angry with
me,” she whispered into my ear before kissing it.

I remained silent, watching the television,
but not really paying attention to what was happening.

“
It was just a
fact-finding endeavor that we undertook,” Kat said. “I’d tell you
if I was leaving for an extended period.”

“
Better pinky swears to
that,” Paige said.

Kat gave her a dirty look and then adopted a
maddeningly patient expression as her gaze shifted back to me.

“
Alton and I went to check
into a lead,” Kat said. “We’re trying to find out who hired your
two assailants.”

“
And?” I asked.

“
We didn’t find the
answers we were seeking,” she said. “The search continues for
now.”

“
The search continues,”
Paige said. “Way to go, Agatha Christie.”

“
Oh, dry up,” Kat
said.

“
With two beers in me
already and a third on the way, not likely,” Paige said. “At least,
not anytime soon, thank you.”

Kat ignored her response, instead looking at
me while stroking her fingernails lightly across my cheek and down
my neck.

It felt pretty amazing, actually.

“
Alton said to remind you
about your new training regimen,” she said. “He said he’ll want an
error-free demonstration the next time he sees you.”

“
Don’t worry,” I said.
“I’ll be able to bludgeon someone with a heavy stick like the best
of them by then.”

“
I know you will,” she
said. “Still, it’s a rather ungainly looking routine, if you ask
me. I’d have preferred advancing your knife fighting techniques
instead.”

“
Alton’s ancient,” Paige
said. “He probably learned it in Ye Olde Branch Beating School.
Hey, maybe next month, he’ll teach you how to string a
lute.”

I chuckled aloud at that.

Kat ran her fingers through my hair as she
snuggled beside me. “You’re up especially late.”

“
Can’t sleep,” I
said.

“
Consequently, he’s
torturing me with cartoons,” Paige said before crunching on another
handful of popcorn.

“
What are we watching?”
Kat asked.

“
McCluck
,” Paige said. “It’s really
pretty good.”

I smiled at Paige and she winked back at
me.

One of the program’s characters made a
screeching sound.

“
McCluck?
” Kat asked. “Hey, isn’t
that woman a chicken?”

“
Her name’s Polly
Poultry,” Paige said.

I grinned. She was catching on fast.

“
An investigative
reporter, as well as Bantam McCluck’s girlfriend,” I said. “She’s a
French Hen.”

“
Odd, but strangely
endearing,” Kat said, leaning her head against my
shoulder.

At least she was trying. However, I was
still annoyed by how she had abruptly left town with Alton without
even a word to me.

Still, it was times like this, just quietly
curled on the couch together watching television, that were among
the most enjoyable moments.

I want a lifetime filled of moments with Kat
just like this one.

That would make me truly happy.

After the episode finished, Kat said, “It’s
getting pretty late. Shouldn’t we get upstairs to bed?”

“
Mothering me again,” I
chastised.

She playfully nipped at my earlobe with her
teeth.

“
There’s nothing motherly
going through my head right now,” she whispered.

“
Hey, just take your
tawdry sex-capades upstairs, you randy wench,” Paige said. “I’m
trying to watch
McCluck
here.”

Kat stuck her tongue out at her, then
reached out to take me by the hand and lead me upstairs.

“
And try to keep the
headboard banging to a minimum up there!” Paige yelled after us.
“I’ve got vampire hearing, you know!”

* * *

It was only after sex that Kat shared with
me that she would be joining Alton on his impromptu departure for
London.

“
You could have mentioned
this earlier,” I said.

She gave me a sly look. “Yes, but then I
probably would’ve missed out on sex.”

She removed her suitcase from the closet and
began packing.

“
So, instead you used me
and you’re just going to fly away?”

“
My mate gets snippy when
he’s tired,” she said.

“
Don’t change the
subject,” I said.

“
Caleb, a sleeper cell in
London is something we have to react to with a sense of immediacy,”
she said. “Surely you remember how dangerous that group beneath the
city became during our spring break visit?”

“
True, I
suppose.”

Subways seemed like creepy, ominous places
following that nearly lethal experience.

She folded some articles of clothing that
had been hanging in the closet and neatly placed them into her
suitcase.

“
Besides, you’re very busy
here and I don’t want to be a distraction to your progress,” she
said.

“
I’m more distracted when
you’re not here,” I said.

She gave me a sympathetic look and walked
over to enfold me in her arms. She kissed me on the top of my
head.

“
I so love you, my dear,”
she said. “I wish that I could stay, but we both have our
obligations and objectives to confront.”

I tightly hugged her body against mine and
tilted my head upward. Her warm lips met mine.

“
Both of them keep
mounting, too,” I said. “I’m starting to resent words beginning
with ‘O’ as time passes.”

She smiled into her next kiss.

“
I miss the life that you
and I had after Chimalma was eliminated,” I said.

“
I know,” she said. “Me,
too.”

“
Do you think we’ll ever
get back to that again?”

“
I certainly hope so,” she
replied.

That wasn’t exactly the reassuring response
I had hoped for.

“
You could have lied a
little bit,” I said.

“
True,” she said. “But
then it would feel even worse when the truth finally raised its
ugly head, wouldn’t it?”

I held her close as her response echoed in
my thoughts.

“
When do you have to
leave?”

“
Just before dawn,” she
replied. “Alton chartered a Sunset Air flight for us already. He
has a way with arranging things on spur of the moment.”

Damn Alton’s efficiency.

Chapter 9

Caleb

I didn’t sleep much at all before Kat and
Alton left. However, sleep or not, my training continued with all
of the promptness that Roman could muster.

Training was followed by rigorous coursework
at the campus, though my attention span was scarcely focused. My
mind kept wandering to thoughts of Kat, worldwide vampire factions,
and hopes to return to a simpler life; the kind we’d lived not so
very long ago.

I longed for my old life, boring and routine
though it might have seemed to others.

There’s one key difference between watching
an exciting, adventurous life presented in the movies and living
one in real life; a movie will eventually end, leaving you with the
vicarious thrill sans all of the lingering wounds and emotional
baggage.

During the next couple of weeks, my patience
wore especially thin as my conversations with Kat were few, as were
my periods of relaxation from a grueling schedule.

Still, while my disposition grew darker, my
weapons training techniques improved considerably. Perhaps that was
due to needing a physical outlet for my frustrations.

At one point, Roman barely deflected a baton
strike toward his shoulder.

“
Hey, you’re not actually
trying to maim me, are you?” he asked.

I stepped back. “Sorry.”

“
Let’s take five,” he
suggested. “Do some more stretching, and maybe throw in some
pushups while you’re at it.”