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His phone rang. "Solis." He listened for a minute, and then said, "Okay, good." He put his hand over the phone, and told Teichmann, "It’s Vanguard. They found Franky’s documents."

  Teichmann continued eating his pie, but he took a moment to retrieve his little leather-bound notebook from his pocket. He made a couple notes, and gulped down his milk. While Solis was listening, Teichmann signaled to the waitress. She was a tired looking woman with the standard shuffle of blue-collar drones with too much weight on their bones. He ordered another slice all-American.

  "No, no, we already know about that. We need the name of the BloodStar’s mate." He looked at Teichmann who was staring at him as usual. "Well, how many BloodStar cases did she work?" There was a pause, and Solis looked at his partner with holy-shit eyes. "Damn, I had no idea. Well, we only need Sabian’s file…Okay, call me back when you find something."

  He flipped his phone closed, stared at his plate for a minute as if trying to reorder his mental files, and then said, "Jesus, Franky worked every BloodStar case at one point or another."

  "How many are there?" Teichmann asked.

  "Twelve bona fide. Sabian makes lucky number thirteen."

  "Think he’ll ever be confirmed?"

  Solis shook his head, and answered, "Not if he has anything to say about it."

  "Reclusive bastards, aren't they? The BloodStar?"

  "Makes them that much more fun to hunt," said Solis.

  Teichmann went all serious and pegged Solis with pitying eyes instead of his usual blank stare. Solis didn’t want to hear what was on the rookie’s mind.

  "Can I ask you something?"

  "Jesus, are you gonna propose?" Solis joked. Mirth wasn't exactly his thing, but he was willing to give it a shot to discourage Teichmann from taking this any further.

  "For Halac, it's not just fun. It’s an obsession, right? You see that, don’t you?"

  Fucking Teichmann, but at least the guy had stones. No one talked to Solis about Halac and the BloodStar. They all knew better, especially Teichmann, so to ask like this showed balls, and Solis gave his partner some begrudging respect.

  "Yeah, well, it’s complicated."

  "Obviously."

  The distaste in Teichmann's delivery pissed Solis off. He was honor-bound to Halac, and out of respect had to school the dunce-ass rookie in agent etiquette.

  "You know why Halac got partnered with Franky in the first place?"

  "No," said Teichmann.

  "Halac was my partner for years. He saved me from more monsters than just leeches. Saved me from my own demons."

  "Yeah?" Teichmann leaned aside and shot Flo the waitress his most handsome howdy as she delivered round two of pie a-la-mode. Solis couldn’t ignore his partner’s effect on civilians as the waitress shuffled away with a little more backbone.

  When she was out of earshot, he continued. "Once upon a time, a bitch leech damn near bled me dry, completely had me. Got her teeth in my neck, jerked my dick, the whole nine. You ever felt that? Ever been with a sucker?"

  The big agent shook his head. He wanted to, though; that much Solis was sure about, and the rookie was looking at him now with intense fascination. Agents abhorred vamps. Most wanted to fuck one, too. How could they not? Talk about the ultimate domination. Problem was, addiction for most humans was instantaneous, and if a bloodsucker got you, it really got you.

  "It’s the fucking moon and stars, just like you’ve heard, I’m sure. Halac busted in and took her out, even though I was screaming for him to let her live."

  "Jesus Palomino."

  "Fucking right."

  Teichmann was silent for a second, and then had to confirm what he’d just heard. "You wanted her to live?"

  "I did," said Solis with no hesitation. "I even pulled my weapon. There’s not one thing in this life I’m more ashamed of. Never even met the bitch before. Took one minute and a look in her eyes, and next thing I knew, I was ready to take out my own partner. Fucking creepy bastards. But Halac saved me. I was in a Vanguard hospital for three weeks."

  "Why so long?"

  "Because I was a junkie, straight up, after only one time. And a menace to my unit. They partnered Halac with Franky while I was locked up in rehab. You know how Halac felt about Franky, right?"

  "Everyone knows," said Teichmann, eyeballing his pie like the antidote for awkward might be in there.

  Solis remembered the rehabilitation wing. Visits from Halac were the only thing that got him through. He wasn’t about to spill his soul to Teichmann about it, but he knew without his friend, he wouldn’t have been able to get back on the job.

  Halac fell in love with his new partner, a woman named Franky. She was gorgeous, a hell of an agent, and goddamn lethal. She was also special in about a million ways, ways that led to serious kills. The entire agency, all regions, knew about what she could do.

  The "Halac-Franky Situation," as it was eventually labeled, reached a level of notoriety that even the Director was uncomfortable with. Halac loved Franky, but Franky wouldn’t relent, refused him every step of the way. It was the only reason the Director let them be. The drama was especially entertaining for the other agents because Halac was top dog, ruthless, made from a broken mold. He’d been with the agency a decade, and Vanguard years were like dog years. Franky, on the other hand, was pretty new to the force. She’d been around for little less than three years, and every heterosexual male and homosexual female tried to bed her, but Franky had none of it.

  "Franky felt the same way about Halac, wanted to be with him, but wouldn’t," said Solis.

  "Why?"

  "She said Sabian’s girl, whoever she is, isn’t only tied to the BloodStar; she’s mated to Halac, too."

  That little bit of sunshine rocked Solis's world when Halac confided in him. Solis was a romantic. Back in the day, he wanted to find a woman so fucking bad, but according to Halac, his standards were too high. It was never that, though. Solis turned down women by the truckload. Broads who got off on the mysterious guy who couldn’t talk about his job were a dime a dozen. Solis was waiting for the bolt of lightening, the electricity of destiny.

  Back then, Solis was convinced there was someone out there for him, his one and only, and one day they’d meet by accident at a gas station or red light or something. When Halac told him that Franky said a person could be soul-mated to any number of other halves, it shook Solis's foundation almost to the ground, Lebanon-style. His one and only could be someone else’s one and only? How many chicks was he supposed to complete? It was a fuckload of responsibility, knowing he could be meant for five women, or ten. Solis was an old fashioned guy, enough to split knuckles out of jealousy. If the stars aligned for multiple matings, someone had to get hurt, right?

  "You mean the one Sabian’s always looking for is stuck to Halac, too? Can that even happen?" Teichmann obviously had the same preconceived notions about soul-mates Solis once had.

  "I guess so. And supposedly our mystery girl's bond with Halac is almost as strong as the bond to the BloodStar." He looked pointedly at Teichmann, and said, "That’s two woman, man. Halac loved Franky for who she was as a person, but supposedly he wouldn’t be able to help loving Sabian's girl if they ever met. And Franky was especially clear about the most important part."

  "What's that?"

  "Neither would ever be his."

  "Damn."

  "So see what I mean? Complicated."

  "But how did Franky know all this?"

  "How the fuck should I know? But I knew Franky personally when she was alive, and believe me, she knew…things. She knew everything."

  "You believe in all that stuff?" Teichmann asked.

  "Once you allow for vampires as reality, isn’t everything on the table?"

  "Good point."

  Anya made her way back down the canyon, trunk empty this time, and parked in front of Marley’s apartment building. The vampire’s face was flushed with blood and the exhilaration of her next step. The plan had marinated for decades, imprisoned in
her mind and rubbed raw by this time. Ever since her first bloodletting, Anya had been shackled by her obsession and drive for possession.

  She wanted the BloodStar. Fuck his commitment to Marley. What she had seen a few hours ago was exactly the impetus she needed to stop fucking planning, and start fucking doing.

  She turned off the ignition, not caring that she was parked in full view of anyone who might happen to be awake. There would be an investigation soon, and maybe witnesses would come forward, maybe they wouldn’t. She didn’t doubt the Vanguard would make an appearance—she’d seen Halac’s old partner sniffing around. So far, however, he didn’t seem to know his ass from a hole in the ground, so she wasn’t concerned. Then again, Anya was rarely concerned about consequences. Why should she be? Immortality bred irresponsibility.

  Her heels clicked up the walkway. This was definitely not the climate for her. Why on earth would Sabian have chosen this place? No one should have to walk through snow in Dior three-inch heels. Plus the sunlight—three hundred days a year. Fucking torture. Then again, Sabian was never too concerned about the sun, probably because he’d never felt his skin searing off his bones in the daylight. Anya had made that mistake once, and once only. She learned the hard and painful way that in her world, the blood of a sire is only a catalyst for the change, nothing more.

  She was the Kindred she was meant to be; any sire could have changed her and she would still be exactly as she was. Which was fabulous, thank you very much, no matter what Sabian thought.

  Some nights previous, Anya had slipped into Marley’s apartment while she was sleeping, and arranged for a spare key. Contrary to what Hollywood advertised, she was unaware of any Kindred who could transform into mist—or anything, for that matter—and wisp in and around doors and keyholes. She wasn’t altogether fond of climbing through windows, so she’d made her stalking as low maintenance as possible by doing the window thing once. After that, it had been a simple twist of the wrist and voila, open sesame.

  The stink of their sex was everywhere and Anya fought through the tide of white-hot fury. She hadn’t stayed long enough to see Sabian and Marley part ways angry, so all she could think about as she walked through the living room was bodies in motion, fucking like dirty wet dogs. She prayed for the strength to keep Marley alive and (relatively) unharmed long enough to see her plans through. But Anya was drunk from Jenna’s blood and the humiliating things she’d made the girl do. There was nothing like fucking a person to death.

  Anya was in the bedroom now, and Marley was lost in fitful sleep. The vampire fought the crippling compulsion to take a chunk of flesh out of Marley’s throat, spit it out in that rat’s nest of curls, and lose herself in the gush of red revenge.

  Marley’s eyes opened. "Sabian?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.

  "You’d like that, wouldn’t you?" Anya said as she climbed on top of Marley and settled her weight so the girl couldn’t struggle.

  When Marley looked into Anya’s eyes, Anya knew in that moment everything was going to work out, just as she’d plotted for decades. She unleashed her Kindred charm and Marley fell comatose.

  Anya didn’t realize her fangs were out and dripping venom until she actually drooled on Marley’s face. All at once, Anya was no longer sated; in fact, she felt ravenous.

  "Can you fucking believe it?" Solis hadn't driven in snow in years, and was having little success passing other cars on the white streets.

  Sunrise had turned the sky a dull grey the color of ash instead of the asphalt hue it had been a half hour before. He was going way too fast for weather conditions, and Teichmann held on to the oh-shit handle above the passenger door with white knuckles. Everyone else on the road moved along at twenty miles per hour. Going a reckless forty, Solis achieved Speed Racer status, and it made Teichmann fucking twitchy.

  "Slow down, man," said Teichmann.

  "We had her, right there."

  Teichmann flinched as Solis passed a car, driving into oncoming traffic for a couple seconds to do it. Clearly Solis was out of his element, and Teichmann had only driven in the snow a few times, but he knew that even the tiniest of corrections could send a car spinning in directions terrible and destructive.

  "The game’s changed since then," Teichmann told his partner while he braced himself with his other hand against the dashboard. "We didn’t know how deep in Halac was. Don’t worry about it, let it go."

  "Yeah, but we interviewed her not even twelve hours ago," said Solis. "Had her in that fucking coffee shop…bar…whatever the fuck it is. Fucking Halac. Fucking snow!" His voice was louder with every fucking thing he cursed.

  Teichmann saw Solis looking around for another opening in the morning-commute traffic to edge twenty insignificant feet forward, and thought maybe his partner didn’t see the yellow light ahead.

  "Fuck!" yelled Solis—who apparently did notice the light—as he slammed the brakes. The car promptly began sliding into the intersection while the ass end executed a lazy hitch to the right. The cars with the now green light on the perpendicular street were already on the move before they realized Solis couldn’t stop, and being more seasoned snow drivers, were just barely able to make the corrections they needed to stop or miss the SUV.

  Teichmann, along with almost shitting his pants, thought it was pretty funny. The cars did a slow motion ballet set to the music of an imminent, funeral-paced pile up. The entire thing was anticlimactic, though, and despite a lot of horn-honking and reluctant rolling down of windows to yell obscenities into the freezing morning, everyone made it through the ordeal unscathed.

  Funny for sure, but Teichmann didn’t laugh. He let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, and looked behind them to see middle fingers flagged around all four corners of the crossroads behind them.

  "Christ," Teichmann said. "I always hassle you to let me drive for a reason. Pull over, you’re out of control."

  But Solis didn’t pull over. Instead, he looked to his right, and smiled at his big partner, pressing the accelerator for even more speed.

  Goddamn death-wish mother-fucker. And he thought Teichmann the dick-partner?

  A few minutes later, they were standing in Marley’s apartment.

  "I’d bet my left nut a bloodsucker took her," said Teichmann.

  Solis, still pissed, countered, "I don’t know about my left nut, but I’d bet my pension. Only question is, which bloodsucker?"

  "BloodStar, don’t you think?"

  Solis shook his head, and looked around the deserted apartment for a moment. "Doesn’t feel right. Why would Sabian take McRae? Feels like an abduction, not a lovers’ excursion. I don’t know. Let’s go."

  "Wait a minute, what pension?"

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was full-on morning, albeit early, when Sabian exited the canyon and began toward Fort Collins proper. A few people were out in front of their houses shoveling. He barely felt the swirling fury of the pelting snow. Water vapor rose from his flesh as flakes melted, leaving him soggy like cereal in too much milk, but so what? He was flying high and almost to back to his drug of choice.

  He froze in front of Marley's door. "No," whispered Sabian as he turned the knob. Marley wasn’t inside, and the scent of treachery was a full frontal assault.

  Anya. How long had she been watching, waiting in the shadows? Why hadn’t he sensed her?

  But he knew the answer to that one, didn’t he? He was obsessed with Marley, and he’d carelessly gorged himself on blood all night long, indulging in human pleasures and ignoring Kindred outrage that should have been as blatant as sunrise.

  There wasn’t a struggle, and for that, at least, he was thankful. Marley was allowed no preparation for departure, which made sense. Marley wouldn’t need any future comforts, not when the endgame was death as only a vampire could deliver.

  But it hadn’t happened here. He would have detected the scent, felt it.

  He remembered the departure of Marley’s soul when she was a young Russian maiden. It
seemed distance could mask some of his connection to her, although not completely. He had felt something wrong, a nameless void. Sabian endured the stress for as long as he could, not knowing but knowing, feeling the not-feeling until he could barely function. When he finally crossed the ocean to find her, it was too late.

  Instead, he found Anya.

  For now, there was no void, just the emptiness of the apartment. Nothing to keep him company but the putrid aroma of his spawn. But there was another scent, and he knew what, just not whom.

  Minions of the Vanguard. They’d been here, too. What were they doing in Fort Collins? One of the agents was familiar, but not the other.

  If Anya planned to kill Marley, he would sense when it happened. There hadn’t been enough time to put meaningful distance between them…yet.

  There was only one thing to do—track them.

  The time had come to undo one of the greatest mistakes he ever made. Before it was over, he would have to kill Anya, no easy task. She’d grown powerful, shrewd, and she had something going for her that he never would: she had nothing to lose. The only thing she cared about was Sabian, and he’d been lost to her long before she was made Kindred.

  This stunt proved one of two things: either she was ready to die, or she truly had no idea how out of line she was, which was an entirely different but equally as valid testimony to her lunacy.

  Whatever. Only Marley mattered. He had to find her, and then, once she was safe, he would deliver justice unto his only childe.

  Sabian left Marley’s apartment immediately, prepared to do whatever needed to be done. One more second of the emptiness might have killed him.

  Each step he took reminded him that he had no direction, and the crunch of his soles in the snow was the sound of a ticking clock measuring the countdown of Marley’s last seconds.

  He muttered to himself as he passed early risers at bus stops. He couldn’t run, not yet. Running was too purposeful. Running required a destination, a plan to get from point A to point B, and right now point B was Marley. He hadn’t a clue where that might be.