Kiss of Crimson (20 page)

He ran a hand over his scalp, further mussing his disheveled hair. ―Like I said, I was up. Just trying to help out where I can. Who‘s your friend?‖

―His name‘s Harvard.‖

―Cute mutt; kind of runty, though. A new patient?‖

Tess nodded. ―Just came in last night. He wasn‘t doing too well, but I think he‘ll be feeling better soon.‖

Ben smiled, but it seemed too tight for his face.

―Working late again last night, Doc?‖

―No. Not really.‖

He glanced away from her, and the smile turned a little sour.

―Ben, are we... okay? I tried to call you the other night, after the museum reception, to apologize. I left you a message, but you didn‘t call back.‖

―Yeah, I‘ve been kind of busy.‖

―You look tired.‖

He shrugged. ―Don‘t worry about me.‖

More than tired, Tess thought now. Ben looked strung out. There was an anxious energy about him, like he hadn‘t slept for the past two days. ―What have you been up to lately? Are you working on another animal rescue or something?‖

―Or something,‖ he said, sliding a shuttered look at her. ―Listen, I‘d love to stay and chat, but I really have to go.‖

He pocketed the screwdriver in his loose jeans and started heading for the clinic‘s front door. Tess trailed after him, feeling a chill as an emotional distance that hadn‘t been there before now began to crack open between them.

Ben was lying to her, and not just about his purpose in being at the clinic.

―Thanks for fixing the table,‖ she murmured to his fast-retreating back.

From within the opened door, Ben swiveled his head around to glance at her over his shoulder. His gaze raked her with its bleakness. ―Yeah, sure. You take care, Doc.‖

An icy drizzle ticked against the glass of Elise‘s living-room window; overhead, the stone-gray afternoon sky was bleak. She parted the sheers of her second-floor private residence and stared out at the cold streets of the city below, at the clumps of people rushing to and fro in an effort to escape the weather.

Somewhere, her eighteen-year-old son was out there too.

He‘d been gone for more than a week now. One of the growing number of Breed youths who‘d disappeared from their Darkhaven sanctuaries around the area. She prayed Cam was underground, safe in some manner of shelter, with others like him to give him comfort and support, until he found his way home.

She hoped that would be soon.

Thank God for Sterling and all he was doing to help make that return happen. Elise could hardly fathom the selflessness that made her brother-inlaw devote himself completely to the task. She wished Quentin could see all that his younger sibling was doing for their family. He would be astonished; humbled, she was sure.

As for how Quentin would feel about her right now, Elise was loath to imagine.

His disappointment would be enormous. He might even hate her a little. Or a lot, if he knew that it was she who drove their son out into the night. If not for the argument she‘d had with Camden, the ridiculous attempt to control him, maybe he wouldn‘t have gone. She was to blame for that, and how she wished she could call back those terrible few hours and erase them forever.

Regret was bitter in her throat as she gazed out to the world beyond her own. She felt so helpless, so useless in her warm, dry home.

Beneath her spacious living quarters in the Back Bay Darkhaven were Sterling‘s private apartments and underground shelter. He was Breed, so while there was even a hint of sun overhead, he was forced to remain indoors and out of the light, like all of his kind. That included Camden as well, for even though he was half hers—half human—he had his late father‘s vampire blood in him. His father‘s

otherworldly

strengths,

and

his

weaknesses.

There would be no searching for Cam until dark, and to Elise, the waiting seemed an eternity. She took up pacing in front of the window, wishing there was something she could do to help Sterling look for him and the other Darkhaven youths who‘d gone missing along with Cam.

Even as a Breedmate, one of the rare females of the human species who were able to produce offspring with vampires—who were solely male—

Elise was still fully
Homo sapiens.
Her skin could bear sunlight. She could walk among other humans without detection, although it had been many long years—more than a century, in fact—since she had done so.

She‘d been a ward of the Darkhavens since she was a little girl, brought there for her own safety and well-being when poverty destituted her parents in one of Boston‘s nineteenth-century slums. When she was of age, she‘d become the Breedmate of Quentin Chase, her beloved. How she missed him, gone just five short years.

Now she might have lost Camden too.

No.
She refused to think it. The pain was too great to consider that for even a second.

And maybe there was something she could do. Elise drew to a halt at the rain-spattered window. Her breath steamed the glass as she peered out, desperate to know where her son might be.

With a burst of resolve, she pivoted around and went to the closet to retrieve her coat from where it had been since several winters past. The long navy wool covered her widow‘s whites, falling down around her ankles. Elise put on a pair of pale leather boots and left her quarters before fear could call her back.

She dashed down the stairwell to the door at street level. It took her a couple of attempts to punch in the correct security code needed to unlock the door, for she couldn‘t remember the last time she‘d been out of the Darkhaven property. The outside world had long represented pain to her, but maybe now she could bear it.

For Camden, she could bear anything. Couldn‘t she?

As she pushed the door open, chilly sleet stung her cheeks, carried toward her on a rush of cool fresh air. Elise braced herself, then walked out, down the brick steps with their wrought-iron railing. On the sidewalk below, thin clusters of people passed, some huddled together, others walking alone, dark umbrellas bobbing with their hurried gaits.

For a moment—the smallest suspension of time—there was silence. But then the ability that had forever been her bane, the extraordinary skill that came in unique form to every Breedmate, pressed down upon her like a hammer.

—I should have told him about the baby—

—not like they’re going to miss twenty measly
bucks, after all—

—told that old woman I’d kill her fucking dog if
it shit in my yard again—

—he’ll never even know I was gone if I just go
home and act like nothing’s wrong—

Elise brought her hands up to her ears as all the ugly thoughts of the human passersby bombarded her. She couldn‘t blot them out. They flew at her like so many winged bats, a frenzied assault of lies, betrayals, and all manner of sin.

She couldn‘t take another step. She stood there getting soaked with drizzle, her body frozen on the walkway below her Darkhaven apartments, unable to will herself to move.

Camden was out there somewhere, needing her—anyone—to find him. Yet she was failing him here. She couldn‘t do anything but hold her head in her hands and weep.

CHAPTER Nineteen

D
usk came early that night, ushered in on the steady spit of a cold November rain coming down from a fog of thick black clouds. The Flats section of Boston‘s Southie neighborhood—probably nothing special to look at during the day, with its thickly settled collection of aluminum-sided duplexes and brick three-decker tenements—was reduced to a wet, colorless slum under the monotonous deluge.

Dante and Chase had arrived on Ben Sullivan‘s dilapidated block about an hour ago, right after sunset, where they still waited in one of the Order‘s dark-windowed SUVs. The vehicle was out of place here simply on the basis of its well-tended appearance, but it put off a distinct don‘t-fuckwith-me vibe, which helped keep most of the gangbangers and other street thugs from coming too close. The few who had wandered near the window to have a peek decided to move on in a hurry after getting a flash of fang through the glass from Dante.

He was twitchy for all the waiting and halfhoped one of the idiot humans would be fool enough to make a move just so he could work out some of his idle energy.

―You‘re sure this is the dealer‘s address?‖ Chase asked from beside him in the dark front seat. Dante nodded, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. ―Yeah. I‘m sure.‖

He had considered paying this visit to Tess‘s Crimson-dealing ex-boyfriend by himself but thought he‘d better bring along some backup just in case. Backup for Ben Sullivan, not himself. Dante wasn‘t at all sure the human would be breathing when he was finished with him if he‘d come alone. And not just because Sullivan was drug-dealing scum either. The fact that the guy knew Tess, and no doubt knew her intimately, flipped a trigger on Dante‘s rage. An unbidden sense of possession stole over him, a need to protect her from losers like this Ben Sullivan person.

Right. Like Dante himself was some kind of prize.

―How did you find it?‖ Chase‘s question cut into his thoughts, snapping him back to his mission.

―Aside from seeing the human jackrabbit out of the club ahead of us the other night, we didn‘t have much to go on as far as IDing him.‖

Dante didn‘t even glance over at Chase, just lifted his shoulder in a shrug as memories of his hours with Tess swamped his senses in vivid recall.

―Doesn‘t matter how I got it,‖ he said after a long minute. ―You Darkhaven suits have your methods; we have ours.‖

Just as another wave of itchy impatience flooded through him, Dante caught a glimpse of his quarry. He sat up in the driver‘s seat of the vehicle, glaring out into the dark. The human came around a corner, head down, face partially shielded by a gray hooded sweatshirt. His hands were thrust into the pockets of a bulky parkalike vest, and the guy was walking fast, throwing continuous looks over his shoulder as if he expected trouble on his heels. But it was him, Dante was certain.

―Here‘s our man now,‖ he said as the human jogged up the concrete steps outside his flat. ―Let‘s go, Harvard. Look alive.‖

They left the vehicle on alarm and followed him right into the building before the door closed behind him, both Breed males moving with the speed and agility that came naturally to those of the vampire race. By the time the human stuck his key in the lock of his third-floor apartment door and pushed it open, Dante was shoving him into the dark, tossing the guy across the spartan living room.

―Motherfu—‖ Sullivan came up out of his crash on one knee, then froze, his face caught in a wedge of light from the bare bulb glowing in the hall outside.

Something flashed in the human‘s eyes, something

beneath

his

immediate

fear.

Recognition, Dante thought, figuring he probably remembered them from the club the other night. But there was anger there too. Pure male animosity. Dante could smell it seeping out of the human‘s pores.

He slowly got to his feet. ―What the fuck‘s going on?‖

―How about you tell us,‖ Dante said, willing a lamp to come on as he strode farther into the place. Behind him, Chase closed and locked the door.

―I‘m pretty sure you can guess this isn‘t a social call.‖

―What do you want?‖

―We‘ll start with information. It‘ll be up to you how we go about getting it.‖

―What kind of information?‖ His gaze swung anxiously between Dante and Chase. ―I don‘t know who you guys are, and I don‘t have any idea what you‘re talking abou—‖

―Now, see,‖ Dante said, cutting him off with a chuckle, ―that kind of bullshit answer puts us off to a real bad start.‖ As the human‘s right hand slid into the deep pocket of his down-filled vest, Dante smirked. ―You wanna convince me you‘re an idiot, go ahead and pull that gun out. Just so we‘re clear, I really hope you do.‖

Ben Sullivan‘s face blanched as white as his apartment‘s unpainted walls. He pulled his hand back out, nice and slow. ―How did you—‖

―You expecting somebody besides us tonight?‖

Dante strode up to him and removed the beat-up

.45-caliber pistol from his pocket without any resistance. He turned to Chase and handed him the safety-locked

weapon.

―Piece-of-shit-looking

hardware for a piece-of-shit drug dealer, eh?‖

―I just got that for protection, and I‘m not a drug deal—‖

―Have a seat,‖ Dante said, and dropped the guy onto a fake-suede recliner, the room‘s sole piece of furniture aside from the computer workstation in the corner and the shelf of stereo equipment against the wall. To Chase, Dante said, ―Give the place a good sweep, see what you can find.‖

―I‘m not a drug dealer,‖ Sullivan insisted as Chase moved off to begin searching. ―I don‘t know what you think—‖

―I‘ll tell you what I think.‖ Dante got down in his face, feeling his anger flare in the sharpening of his eyes and the slight prick of his fangs against his tongue. ―I know you‘re not going to sit there and deny that we saw you dealing Crimson in the back of that club three nights ago. How long have you been trafficking in that shit? Where are you getting it?‖