Lucas Read online

  Lucas advanced slowly, holding the two attackers in place with a thought. He felt more than heard some of his own vampires enter the room and spoke without turning. “Get the women out of here. Gently.”

  The women whimpered in fear when Lucas’s vampires approached them, and he spared a wisp of power to send them all into sleep. He would speak to Thad when this was over and recommend the leader permit him to wipe the women’s memories of the events in this room. Not the attack. People had died here today. There could be no forgetting that. But these women didn’t need to remember the rest of it. Not if they didn’t want to.

  He focused again on the two enemy vampires now cringing before him, trying to shrink into the floor itself. They were covered in the blood of their victims, fangs fully distended, and they were both huge. Taller even than Lucas, and far more heavily muscled. The vampires in the yard had been the same. Klemens had apparently been gathering thugs for some time, preparing an army for the day he would make his move. Lucas sneered privately. It would take more than a few slabs of beef to win this war.

  He crouched in front of the nearest attacker. He hadn’t touched the vamp yet, but then he didn’t need to.

  “What were your orders?” he asked.

  The vampire had the good sense to shake his head. He might be terrified of Lucas, but Klemens was no one to cross lightly either.

  “How about you?” Lucas asked, addressing the second prisoner.

  Clearly emboldened by his fellow thug’s success, he too shook his head and uttered a grunting sort of noise that Lucas took for a negative.

  Lucas bared his teeth. “Oh, I so hoped you’d feel that way. Nicholas,” he called over his shoulder, having felt his lieutenant enter the room. “Ask Thad if he has a soundproofed room where I can converse with these two. If not . . .” Lucas turned back and eyed the captives lazily. “I’ll just have to rip out their vocal cords and take the truth from their tiny brains . . . after we play a bit, of course. I bet Thad and his people would love to spend some quality time with them first.”

  One of the vampires whined in fear. Lucas studied the bastard as he would a piece of shit on his heel. “You’d rather I kill you quick?”

  The vampire nodded, his eyes begging for mercy. But Lucas only laughed. “Where would be the fun in that?”

  Chapter Six

  Kathryn turned off the alarm on her cell phone before it could ring. Despite what she’d thought the night before, there hadn’t been any flights into Minneapolis until this morning. So she’d booked the first one at six o’clock this morning, and then gone looking for a gym to work off some of her nervous energy. That had been a bust, too. She’d driven up and down every street before admitting a 24-hour FitnessCenter wasn’t going to materialize on the next corner. She could have driven to Spearfish, or even Rapid City, but that was a good hour’s drive each way, and she hadn’t been that eager to work out. She’d finally stopped at the local Starbuck’s—apparently there was no town too small for Starbuck’s—and forced herself to stick to decaf coffee while using their Wi-Fi connection to dig up what she could on Carmichael and his gallery. That hadn’t taken much time, and without caffeine there didn’t seem to be much point to the coffee, so she’d gone back to the motel and tried to grab a few hours of sleep. She didn’t know why she’d bothered. Every time she closed her eyes, the facts of Daniel’s case would appear—her personal checklist imprinted on the inside of her eyelids, with every item checked off and the inescapable conclusion that she still knew absolutely nothing.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, when she managed to erase the checklist, it was only to be replaced by an endless loop of speculation as to where Lucas had been off to in such a rush last night.

  She rolled out of bed, booted up her laptop and immediately began searching law enforcement databases for reports of recent and unusual violence. That made for a pretty broad search, but she didn’t know what she was looking for. She narrowed the time window to the last twelve hours, which helped a little, and limited the search further to cities within a helicopter ride of her current location. That was more problematic, since it depended on the equipment, and there was always the possibility they’d refueled somewhere. But even eliminating that possibility, the target area was so big that it was impossible to weed out any one violent event from another. America was a violent country. On any given night in a major city, there were too many crimes to count. Add in the problem of smaller jurisdictions that were represented in the search parameters, and it was the proverbial needle in a haystack. Worse, she didn’t even know if it was a needle or not.

  Giving that up as a lost cause, she took a quick shower and got dressed. She didn’t bother to pack, taking only her briefcase, with her laptop inside. And her weapon, of course, which she wore in her belt holster. Everything else she left in the motel. Since she hadn’t been able to fly out last night, she’d have to make it a day trip, coming back in time tonight to meet Lucas for their visit to . . . what did Lucas call it? A blood house. Great.

  Her flight this morning would get her into Minneapolis just after noon. She could go directly to the gallery, talk to the owner if he was available, or his staff if he wasn’t around. Three hours later, she’d be on her return flight, arriving in plenty of time to do some bloody clubbing with vampires.

  * * * *

  Kathryn stared at the sign in the art gallery window in disbelief. Closed for lunch? Who the hell closed for lunch? And for two hours? She looked around the busy Minneapolisstreet to verify that she was indeed in a big American city and not somewhere in Europe where the two-hour, everything-shuts-down-for-lunch break was the norm.

  She checked her watch. There was one hour left before the gallery would reopen. A gust of wind blew down the wide street, and she shivered, pulling her jacket closer as she searched the surrounding area for a way to kill an hour. Her gaze fell on the huge Mall of America in the distance, and she groaned inwardly. She hated shopping. But according to Lucas, she needed something appropriate to wear tonight, and a warmer jacket would be useful, too. She sighed and headed for her car with dragging steps.

  An hour later on the dot, she was back, sliding her rental sedan into a parking space on the street which opened up just as she cruised past. Taking that as a good sign, she was feeling optimistic when she pulled open the heavy glass door on the gallery. It was fairly typical inside, with pale walls and track lighting which could be maneuvered to accommodate the varying shows over time. Floating walls hung blankly in midair, and Kathryn wondered if they were in the process of transitioning to a new showing.

  The sharp click of high heels sounded on the hardwood floor, and Kathryn turned to find an intensely fashionable woman bearing down on her. She was older than Kathryn by at least ten years, with straight black hair parted in the middle and brushing her shoulders. Her makeup was perfect, her skin so pale Kathryn would have thought her one of Lucas’s gang, if not for the bright sunlight beaming outside the UV protected windows. Contact lenses changed what Kathryn thought were probably brown eyes into a brilliant turquoise that nature had never produced in the human eye.

  A tight pencil skirt forced the woman to walk with mincingly short steps as she approached Kathryn. “Good afternoon,” she said in a pleasant but sophisticatedly cool voice. “And welcome to the Carmichael. How can I help you?”

  Kathryn smiled back and produced her FBI identification. “Special Agent Kathryn Hunter. Is Mister Carmichael around?”

  The woman studied the badge carefully before switching her gaze to Kathryn and saying, “I’m sorry, Mister Carmichael isn’t here.”

  “When do you expect him?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. Mister Carmichael isn’t in town this evening.”

  “I understand he has a gallery besides this one?”

  “Yes, his main base of operations is the gallery in Chicago.”

  “He’s in Chicago then?”

  “I can’t say for certain. Mister Carmichael doesn’t need to clear hi
s schedule with me.”

  “But if you wanted to get in touch with him, that’s where you’d start?”

  “If I wanted to reach Mister Carmichael, Agent, I’d call his cell phone,” the woman drawled, as if explaining the marvels of modern technology to an idiot.

  Kathryn studied the other woman silently. Long enough that she finally reached up with nervous fingers to straighten her already perfect hair. “Was there something else?” the woman asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Kathryn said. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Francoise.”

  “Francoise? That’s it? Like Cher?”

  Francoise pursed her lips unhappily, which wasn’t kind to her perfect makeup, revealing a starburst of unattractive creases around her lips that made Kathryn up her estimate of the woman’s age by another ten years.

  “Francoise Reyos,” she said grudgingly.

  “I notice you’ve recently taken down a collection, Francoise.”

  “Yes, a series of photographs by Daniel Hunter,” she said, her expression suddenly animated. “A talented photographer and very popular with our clients. Not to mention a handsome and charming man.”

  “You know him well, then?”

  “Oh, yes. Not as well as Alex knows him, of course, but we’re very friendly.”

  “Alex?” Kathryn repeated, trying to keep her voice from giving away the fact that the name meant anything special to her, that this was the name of the vampire who Daniel had been seen leaving with.

  “I meant Mister Carmichael, of course. Alex Carmichael.”

  Kathryn froze. Her research had listed the owner as George A. Carmichael, but both Magda and Lucas had been careful to call him only by his last name. Lucas had known she was looking for an Alex, and he wasn’t stupid. He had to know Alex Carmichael would immediately jump to the top of her list. So, why hadn’t he mentioned it?

  And here she’d begun to think of him as a friend, maybe more. That lying bastard.

  Francoise was staring at her worriedly, and Kathryn immediately banished all thoughts of Lucas. She’d deal with him later. She forced herself back to the present.

  “Will Alex be around tomorrow morning, by any chance?” she asked Francoise, wondering if the woman knew her boss was a vampire.

  Francoise dropped her eyes and looked away before answering. “I don’t expect him back before tomorrow evening at the earliest. Evening is our busiest time. That’s when Alex likes to be here.”

  “Of course. Do you happen to have a photograph of Alex?”

  “The brochure,” Francoise said brightly, and hurried over to a narrow table of blond wood against one of the floating walls. Kathryn followed, taking one step for every two of Francoise’s in her tight skirt. The gallery assistant picked up what looked more like a booklet than a brochure and flipped it open to an inside page.

  “That’s Alex,” she said with some pride and pointed at a color photograph of a handsome middle-aged man with silvery blond hair. The title under the photo identified him as G. Alexander Carmichael.

  “What’s the G stand for?” Kathryn asked.

  “Oh,” Francoise murmured, leaning in conspiratorially. “It’s George, but he hates that name. It’s on all the legal sorts of documents, but he never uses it. It’s always Alex.”

  Kathryn’s heart skipped a beat. The witness had described “Alex” as blond and older, but to a twenty-year-old Marine corporal, middle-aged probably was older. And Alex Carmichael was definitely blond. There were too many coincidences here to ignore.

  “Do you have Alex’s cell number handy?” she asked.

  Francoise looked as if she wanted to say no, but that would have been foolish. She’d just admitted having the number not five minutes earlier. So she nodded sharply and minced away on her skinny heels, walking over to a minimalist glass desk and retrieving a business card from an elegant mother-of-pearl box.

  She held the card out to Kathryn, who’d followed her to the desk. Kathryn studied the card before tucking it into her pocket.

  “Thank you, Francoise. If Mister Carmichael calls, don’t tell him, or anyone else, that I was looking for him.”

  Francoise appeared surprised by the request. She nodded, but Kathryn saw the rebellion in her eyes and knew she was lying. The minute Kathryn walked out the door, Francoise would be on the phone leaving a message for her vampire boss.

  And speaking of vampires, Lucas had a few lies to answer for. Maybe he knew far more than he was saying about other things, too. Like what had happened to her brother and where Daniel was right now.

  * * * *

  Kathryn threw her bags down on the bed when she returned to the motel, still debating whether or not to go to the club without Lucas. Her flight had been delayed on the ground in Minneapolis longer than it took to fly back to Rapid City. She’d raged privately, but there was no sense in yelling at the gate attendant as she’d seen a couple of businessmen doing. After all, the poor woman had nothing to do with the delay, nor could she magically conjure up a new plane just to be sure those two assholes got home in time for dinner.

  The plane had finally taken off, but it was nearly ten p.m. by the time she walked back into the small town motel room she shared with Daniel’s clothes and equipment. She’d left several messages for Lucas, both before leaving Minneapolis and once she was back on the ground, but he hadn’t returned any of her calls. She checked her phone one more time, half-expecting to find a message from him canceling their appointment. She had no doubt that the ever helpful Francoise, or her boss Alex, had made sure Lucas knew Kathryn had visited the gallery and now knew about Alex Carmichael.

  She’d hoped he wouldn’t cancel, though. Hoped that he was arrogant enough to bluff his way through. Because while she intended to have it out with him about Carmichael, she still needed him to make sure that she not only got into the club tonight, but that his people answered her questions. Once that was done, she could confront him about what he knew. Two could play at lies and half-truths.

  But since Lucas hadn’t bothered to call, she now had to decide whether to try the club without him. She had no guarantee he would still hold to their agreement, even if he showed up. And now that she knew about Carmichael, he might decide to send her off on a wild goose chase while he covered his vampire buddy’s ass.

  That decided it for her. She wasn’t waiting for Lucas or anyone else. This was America, and she was, by God, a sworn federal officer. She was going to that club tonight, and she was going to get the answers she needed, or she’d arrest everyone and shut the whole damn thing down.

  “Damn right!” she shouted, pumping her arm once in an act of defiance. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and started laughing. Okay, so maybe she couldn’t shut the club down, but she could and would go there and ask some questions. And she definitely wouldn’t be waiting for that snake Lucas to do it.

  * * * *

  Lucas stormed into his office, still wearing the bloody leathers from last night’s battle. He’d been forced to sleep through the day at the Minneapolis house, along with the survivors from Minnetonka. The enclave had been too badly damaged for the vampires’ safety, and the humans had been too shattered by the violence to stay there anyway. The enclave would be rebuilt, maybe even in that location. But it would take time, and Thad and his people would need that time to heal themselves. Lives had been lost last night. Granted the enemy had lost far more, but that was little comfort to the dead or those who’d loved them.

  The attack had taught Lucas a hard lesson. No one was safe in this war, not when Klemens was willing to reduce himself to the brutality of human warfare, not when innocent civilians were targets, and rape was an acceptable weapon.

  Lucas hadn’t wanted to remain in Minneapolis after the battle, but it had taken several hours to clean up the scene in Minnetonka sufficiently to avoid scrutiny by the human authorities. The compound hadn’t had any close neighbors, but it had been necessary to repair the worst of the damage to the wall and, especi
ally, to remove the human bodies. The vampire bodies had taken care of themselves, but there was no concealing the destruction of the buildings. Klemens’s people had done Lucas a favor by torching everything. It made the damage easier to explain and provided an excuse for the sudden absence of people living there. But the fire had also drawn a crowd. Fortunately, the relatively remote location meant it was a small crowd, but Lucas had been forced to manipulate their memories to support his preferred version of the events.

  Between that and getting everyone to safety in Minneapolis, then meeting with Thad and several of Lucas’s people, there’d been no time to return to the ranch before dawn. His only other choice would have been flying home with a human pilot at the controls, traveling through the daylight hours and sleeping at the airport until sunset. He hated that idea on two fronts. One was his personal paranoia, inherited from his Sire, Raphael, about putting a human solely in charge of his safety. And the other was his aversion to sleeping on the plane at all.

  He had a penthouse in St. Paul where he usually stayed when visiting the Twin Cities, but time had been so short this morning that he hadn’t bothered with that, either. He’d ended up spending the daylight hours in one of the bedrooms of the Minneapolis HQ vault, and flown back to the ranch this evening. It hadn’t been that simple, of course. He’d had to meet with Thad again before leaving, and he’d made a series of phone calls to the leaders of his other regional nests, advising them of Klemens’s new and dangerous tactic. He’d ordered them to get the word out to the civilians in their areas.

  On any other night, Lucas would have lingered in Minneapolis even longer, but he had a nagging feeling that his favorite FBI agent wouldn’t hang around waiting for him to escort her to the club. After his abrupt departure the previous night, she’d probably spent all day today chomping at the bit, cursing vampires in general and him specifically. But despite all of that, he still had one more call to make before he called Kathryn.