Blood Ascendant (Blood Stone Book 5) Read online

  Rory looked at the woman more sharply as the absence of pheromones and body-heat made itself felt. The woman looked back at her steadily.

  “Ms. Rafferty,” the cop said.

  “Doctor Rafferty,” she corrected automatically.

  “Doctor Rafferty. I am Detective Tom Plank, with the Santa Clara Police Department. This is Christine Perugia, a civilian consultant from San Francisco.”

  “Consultant?” Rory asked politely.

  “Vampire Relations,” Perugia said, confirming Rory’s guess. She was a vampire. “I happened to be in the area today and thought I would give a helping hand.”

  “I see.” Rory looked at Plank once more. “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  He pulled out a thick notebook. “The department received an anonymous tip early this morning, with enough information in it that we were obliged to follow up. The tip said someone had been murdered at 44 College Avenue.” He looked up at her.

  That was Rory’s address. “You broke into my home?”

  “The patrol unit that investigated could see someone lying on the floor in the living room. They forced open the front door to investigate. The victim was taken to Emergency and was pronounced dead upon arrival.” He put the notebook back in his breast pocket and looked at her. “The victim died from exsanguination. There were what appears to be bite marks on her neck.”

  “Who is the victim?” Rory asked. “Is it someone you believe I might know?”

  “We’re waiting for prints to be confirmed,” Plank said. “You don’t care how she died?”

  “I care that she was dumped on my living room floor,” Rory said. “As I did not leave her there, that is the extent of my concern for her.” She looked at the consultant, Perugia. “Were they vampire bites?”

  Perugia’s gaze flickered toward the cop. “No,” she said shortly.

  Rory looked at the cop. “I am sure Ms. Perugia has informed you that vampires, if they are ever forced to feed from live victims, never drain them of blood. They also clean up after themselves and heal the donor’s wounds. No vampire has the capacity to ingest all the blood of a single human at one feeding. Draining a victim to the point of death was a punishment used in antiquity and has long since fallen out of favor. There are faster and cleaner ways to kill someone, Sergeant.”

  “I’m sure you know some of them, too,” Plank said evenly.

  “Of course. I am a vampire. I have lived long enough to have passed through periods of history where defending myself was necessary.”

  Plank glanced at Perugia. “So Ms. Perugia told us. Do you know of any reason why someone would acquire a body and leave it in your house, then phone in a complaint?”

  Rory shrugged. “I can think of several people. Only one of them might bear me enough ill will to actually go through with such a scheme.” She frowned. “You said ‘acquired’. Does that mean whoever did this didn’t actually kill the victim?”

  “The doctor in Emergency said the body was too old. We think it might have been…um…stolen.”

  “From a morgue?” Rory felt a touch of relief. Corbin was, at least, not a murderer. Her judgement of his character had not been completely skewed by his pretty looks.

  “We’re still looking into that.” Corbin pulled out his notebook again. “This one person you think it might be. Give me their name and contact details. We’ll look into it.”

  Rory reeled off Corbin’s name and home address, his cellphone number and his office number here in the Research Centre.

  Plank raised his brow at that. “Disgruntled co-worker?” he asked.

  “A dumped lover that doesn’t understand ‘no’ and doesn’t like vampires,” Rory said.

  Perugia’s nose wrinkled. She understood. Of course she did.

  Plank cleared his throat. He stuffed the notebook away once more and nodded. “We’ll be in touch again, I’m sure,” he told her. “While the investigation is on-going, I have to ask you to stay in the county and hold yourself available for interviews as and when.”

  “I get called down to Houston for my work, sometimes with little notice,” she pointed out.

  “Let us know if you do and we’ll take it from there,” Plank said.

  “Am I a suspect?” Rory demanded. “You really believe I had anything to do with this?”

  Plank bristled. “Until we know a lot more, we can’t say.” His tone was stiff. “The investigating team will likely want to talk to you, just to begin. I’d cooperate, ma’am. It won’t look good if you don’t.”

  “I did not say, even by implication, that I would not cooperate,” Rory said quickly and firmly. “It is inappropriate for you to indicate that I did.”

  Plank’s jaw squared itself and flexed. “I apologize,” he said stiffly.

  Perugia was smiling and hiding it. There was a warmth in her eyes that hadn’t been there until now.

  Was Plank another official who didn’t like vampires, didn’t trust them and would do anything to keep them contained? That prejudice was swiftly overtaking any other racial or religious bias as the world’s most popular, these days. Some people would prefer that vampires spend their nights fighting the Summanus and their days locked up. Coffins were optional.

  Plank seemed to feel the interview was at an end, or perhaps he was leaving the field, defeated. Either way, he gave her a short nod and strode to the door.

  Perugia’s smile was a touch warmer. She turned and left with Plank. Rory understood why she had remained mostly silent. It was better that her loyalties not be questioned, which they would be if she defended other vampires too vigorously. It was enough that she was there to shift suspicion away from vampires as the aggressors in this case and lingered to assure the information didn’t get “lost” in the police department’s zealousness to close another case.

  After they were gone, Rory watched the last of the sun sink down behind the hills in a spectacular display of orange, red and purple. It had been another sweltering day she had been happy to miss, here inside a climate-controlled building. If she worked for a few more hours, the afternoon sea breeze would have cooled everything a little more, making it more comfortable to be outside.

  She didn’t settle back to work straight away. She considered what Corbin had done. She had no doubt it was him who had put the body there. It was a more extreme form of harassment that suited his style. It also had a matching degree of carelessness about it—the clumsy marks on the neck that even Sergeant Plank had not believed were vampire bites, a body that was too old to be fresh kill…it was all too easy to discredit.

  For a moment, she considered phoning Corbin and demanding an explanation, except she suspected it was what he wanted her to do. He wanted the chance to crow over her, to witness her anger and helplessness. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  Instead, she deliberately dismissed the matter and got back to work once more.

  * * * * *

  Around seven p.m., Dante phoned. By that time, Rory was more than willing to stop for the night. She smiled as she connected. “You’re back from Denver. How did the game go?” It was preseason and the exhibition matches were in full swing. Dante had retired from active playing last March, not long after the Superbowl, which they had been forced to hold during daylight hours to give everyone time to get home before dark. The Summanus were making wholesale shifts in everyone’s lives. The advertising for the Superbowl had been less than stellar, too. That wasn’t why Dante had retired, though.

  She sat back, happy to settle in and talk football with him.

  “Turn on your TV,” Dante said, his deep voice rumbling in her ear.

  Rory sat up again and reached for her big screen tablet. “Which channel?” There was something in his voice that told her not to stop to ask questions.

  He told her the channel and Rory brought the live feed up on her tablet. It was the nightly news program. They had reached the point of reporting on small local news. The anchor was gravely intoning about water restrictions a
nd record heat.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?” Rory asked.

  Dante sighed. “You missed it. They were talking about you.”

  Her heart fell. “Me?”

  “Something about a body and vampire feeding. They were showing the front of your house.” He paused.

  Corbin Parish. The clumsy attempt to frame her for murder had just been the first phase of his harassment.

  “Rory, they said it out loud,” Dante added gently. “Right there on the screen.”

  “They said I was a vampire?”

  “They had your driver’s license photo, too. They outed you in the most public way possible.” His voice hardened. “They can’t get away with that, can they?”

  “There are no laws giving vampires privacy protection,” Rory said quietly. “Vampires aren’t even classified as legal entities yet. The bill is still in the House.”

  “So they can get away with it.” Dante sounded pissed.

  Rory thought it through. “It was inevitable that this would happen one day,” she said finally. “Once I told my employer about my true nature, it was bound to emerge elsewhere.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “I didn’t see the clip,” she reminded him.

  “That you’re a vampire isn’t the really big news,” he said patiently. “It’s that you drained a human dry and left them strewn on your living room floor they’re screaming about.”

  “Allegedly drained.”

  “You really think a ratings-driven TV show is going to remember to say that every single time? They’re crucifying you without benefit of a trial, Rory.”

  “The police don’t believe I’m involved. I pointed them toward the man who probably did it.” Even as angry as she was growing, she still wouldn’t condemn Corbin absolutely, not until she knew her suspicions were right.

  “That asshole you dated twice? The one with a slang name for every race, breed and genome on the planet?”

  “Corbin Parish,” she confirmed.

  “I’ll kill him.”

  “Don’t do anything, Dante,” she said quickly, for she had no doubt that Dante would try to fix this for her if she didn’t. “The police are involved. Stay out of the way and let them sort it out.”

  She listened to his breath even out as he tried to calm himself down. Then he blew gustily into the phone. “You don’t deserve this,” he said stiffly. “You work hard, you pay taxes and you’re sweet to old ladies and pets.”

  “The ones that don’t run whimpering into the night when I get near them,” she said, smiling. “Have you had dinner yet?”

  “On the plane, although that’s hardly food.”

  “First class food is pretty good, I’m told.”

  “I’d rather have drunk a pint of warmed blood.” He sighed. “I’m wiped. If you’re not going to smear the asshole across the pavement tonight and you won’t let me do it, I’m going to go to bed and sleep off the jetlag. See you for breakfast?”

  “Training camp? Wouldn’t miss it. Anyone I should be keeping an eye on?”

  Dante had been helping out with training and coaching during the summer’s training camps. He went through all the potential stars among the new recruits and Rory listened happily. The 49ers might have a very good year, if the Summanus let them. This would be the second season of daylight-only events and perhaps the public would appreciate distraction from a world filled with real monsters and come see more live games.

  After twenty minutes of pleasant conversation broken up by Dante’s yawns, she made Dante hang up and go to bed.

  Then she packed up her things and drove home. Her house was near the university, in a pleasant, tree-lined street, although even the trees looked wilted under the effects of the lingering heat wave.

  From nearly a block away from her house, Rory saw the lights and the cars almost closing in the street ahead. Police cars were closest to the house. There were also network TV vans and unmarked cars of all types.

  They had to be waiting for her. They wouldn’t have been able to access the grounds of the research Centre so they had camped out here, where she would be accessible.

  Rory didn’t brake. She didn’t speed up. She let the Audi roll forward at the same speed and put on her indicator for the next intersection, as if that had been her intended direction all along.

  She settled in for the drive up to San Francisco. It didn’t take nearly as long as it usually did, because traffic dropped radically at night, these days.

  Dante’s house was a modest two million dollar multi-story on Russian Hill. She parked next to his black Viper and climbed up to the front door, looking around for anyone taking more than casual interest in her. The winding road could be hiding all sorts of covert observers, with its plants and shrubs thrusting into the middle, making the road twist snake-like down the hill. Media people would be more open about their interest. There was no one standing around with a camera or recorder in hand, though. Most people were sensible about the dark and didn’t take risks once the sun had set, even though hunters had all but cleared out the inner city areas of Summanus.

  Hatching season was drawing closer, though.

  It took Dante a while to answer the door. He would have been deeply asleep. When he opened the door, he was wearing pajama pants that she knew he had put on just to answer the door. His huge shoulders gleamed in the low light from the porch. He scrubbed at his black hair and beard sleepily. “Rory.” He pushed the door open wider, so she could step in.

  “There were journalists and police outside my house,” she said.

  Dante grimaced. “I should have thought of that. Sorry.”

  “You could barely string words together as it was.”

  “I’ve already got used to the idea that people don’t go out after dark. I guess the media congregate and figure they’re safe, that way.”

  She went through to the gracious loungeroom. “Can I use your sofa?”

  “If you can work with all this going on, sure,” he said. “Do you want company?”

  “Are you kidding? Go back to bed. I have my laptop and my tablet. I’ll be more comfortable here than my office.” She put her satchel down on the coffee table.

  Dante rubbed at his eyes, trying to wake up. His black eyes and olive skin he had inherited from his Italian mother. The thick black hair and build came from his father’s side of the family, who could count ancestors all the way back to ancient Greece. His physical strength and dexterity were the product of hard work and incredible self-discipline, developed over a fifteen year career as a professional football player.

  These days, he was using that skill and dexterity for other things.

  “You’re not going to go hunting tonight?” he asked her.

  “All my gear is in the house.” She grimaced.

  “Right. Of course.” He looked toward the stairs. “I can’t even think straight.”

  “I’ll be fine. My needs are few.”

  “Lucky you. Right now I would give anything to not have to sleep. My unit is out there for the second night without me.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Rory assured him. “You’ve taught them well.”

  He gave her a grin and headed upstairs, his bare feet soft on the carpet.

  * * * * *

  Nine hours later, when Rory heard Dante moving around upstairs, she made coffee for him and turned on the TV to catch up on news.

  She was the subject of the third item after the first ad break. Puzzled, Rory watched the anchor flip to a journalist standing in front of her house, talking to Mr. Washanksy from three doors up, who told him he’d seen a body being pulled out of her house yesterday morning and the police had been there ever since.

  “Did you know your neighbor was a vampire?” the journalist asked.

  Mr. Washanksy looked troubled. “She lied to all of us here. Living among us and not saying anything. People’s pets have gone missing for years around here.”

  “Because they don’t tag
them, you moron!” Rory told the screen.

  “Of course, the El Camino Real running right past the end of your street has nothing to do with pets going missing,” Dante said, from just behind her.

  Rory nearly jumped. She had been focused on the TV and missed his panther-like stroll into the room. He carrying his big coffee mug, which he lifted slightly. “Thanks,” he added. He nodded toward the screen. “Still don’t want to cream the guy?”

  “He’s not worth it. If I react, I’ll be giving him what he wants, anyway.”

  Dante considered her. “Attention?”

  “And confirmation that he’s getting to me.” She switched off the TV and put the remote down. “I’m going to have to let the office know what is happening.”

  “You figure Ben Lyon doesn’t already know? Every network is running it.”

  “A courtesy call then.” She pulled her cellphone out of her bag and glanced at the time. It was past seven. Early, but not outrageously early to call Ben. She hit the speed dial button and waited.

  Ben didn’t bother with small talk. He had learned long ago she wasn’t interested in it. “You’re all over the news,” he said. He didn’t bother with hello. They both knew each other.

  “Hence the call.”

  “Is this Corbin’s doing?”

  “Then it’s as obvious to you as it is to me,” Rory said. “I hope the police think so, too. I got a visit from them yesterday.”

  “Security told me,” Ben admitted. “I’m going to have to talk to Corbin’s director, find out what he plans to do about it. Thing is, Rory, Corbin was trying to find a way to get you out of the Centre and it looks as though he found one.”

  “You’re firing me?” she breathed.

  Dante’s head jerked up from the tablet he had been reading. His eyes narrowed.

  “Not until and only if the police lay any charges. It’s the moral clause in your contract. We all signed the same contract, so Corbin knows it as well as you should. The suspicion of criminal behavior calls for automatic suspension. He got you, Rory.”

  She gripped the phone. “What about him? He’s being questioned, too.”

  “That’s why I’m going to talk to his director, to make sure he’s in the loop.”