Shattered Valor (17 page)

“I met one once. At a castle in Germany. Believe me, they’re real.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh, I did. Ask Kit. He was with me.”

Eden sat up and faced him, sitting cross-legged in front of her. “Tell me the story.”

Ty shook his head. “No. It’s too scary for a bedtime story. I want you to be able to sleep tonight.”

“Ty! C’mon! It’s just a story. Tell it to me.” She smiled at him.

He looked at her a long minute, then sighed. “All right. But if you get too scared, tell me to stop.” He met her eyes. “And it isn’t just a story. This really happened.”

“Where was the castle?”

“I can’t tell you. You’ll want to go there and see for yourself, but it’s far too dangerous. Now, don’t interrupt me.”

She grinned. “I won’t.”

“Kit and I were stationed at a base in Germany. We’d both had been accepted into an elite and secret special operations unit in the Army.”

“If it’s secret, should you be telling me about it?”

“You’re interrupting.”

“Sorry.”

“We were there doing some situational training at the base. Inside the base compound was a section of land that had been fenced off. No one from the base was allowed to go in there. And none of the locals could get to it because it sat inside the Army grounds.” He looked at her. “Not that they would want to go there. I heard from some of the town elders that they were happy when the base was built after World War II because it encircled the castle’s property, locking it away from the townspeople. Protecting them from its malevolence.”

Eden picked up a pillow and hugged it to herself as she listened to Ty’s story.

“I really shouldn’t be telling you this story,” he said, watching her.

“Why not?”

“Because vampires are capable of traveling great distances. The monster could leave his castle and be here before I’m done telling the story.”

“Oh, stop it, Ty.” She bit her lip. “Maybe we should put garlic around the windows.”

“All the windows in the house? There isn’t enough garlic in Wolf Creek Bend.”

The tablet began to fade out. Eden touched the screen to keep the light on. “Okay, go on.”

“One night, a few of the guys in our group had some free time. We went into town to the local pub. It was a mild summer night. The pub was crowded with villagers who were having an animated discussion. It was a little weird when we walked in. They got quiet and gave us surly looks.

“After a while, the big group of people broke up. Some went back to their tables, some left. One of the villagers, an elderly man, came over to sit with us. We asked him what had the town so riled up. His hands were shaking as he drank his beer. He sent a look around the room, then leaned toward us. ‘It is my granddaughter,’ he said.

“One of the villagers overheard him. He told him not to tell the Americans. The elderly man cursed at them and said it was his granddaughter who’d been taken, that he was going to ask for help from us since the town’s men were not brave enough to assist him.”

Eden drew a sharp pull of air. “What happened?”

“Well, he told us more about the castle. Apparently, for centuries, young girls would go missing from town and their bodies would be found on the castle grounds, virtually drained of blood. Their bodies were always dressed in clothes that the girls did not own. There were no wounds or injuries anywhere on them,” he paused as looked at Eden, “except for two puncture wounds right here.” He touched two fingers to her jugular vein.

She shivered. “No.” Her denial was whispered and breathy.

He nodded. “There’d been seven documented cases over three hundred years. The last was in the early twentieth century, before the First World War. Because things had been quiet for so long, the villagers had begun to think the monster had been so disturbed by the wars, and then by the base being built around his castle, that he’d left for more comfortable hunting grounds.

“The gentleman talking to us said his granddaughter had been taken from her room three nights earlier. There’d been no sign of a struggle. The windows and doors were still locked. He said she was a good girl who wouldn’t have done anything to upset her parents.

“How old was she?” Eden asked.

“Sixteen.”

“What happened to her?”

Ty shook his head. “The old man was certain the vampire had taken her. He was trying to round up some men to go with him to the castle. He’d reported his granddaughter missing to the local police and the government, but they were handling it as if she were a runaway.

“Two of the guys we were with didn’t want any part of the rescue. That left just me and Kit. The poor guy was so desperate and so certain the monster in the castle had his granddaughter that we couldn’t just leave him.

“While we were talking to him, some of the top brass from the base and a few local dignitaries came into the pub looking for the old man. They’d agreed to let him go into the castle to search for his granddaughter. Kit and I volunteered to go with him.”

“I can’t believe you did that. I would have been so terrified.”

Ty shrugged. “We’d wanted an excuse to explore the castle. This way we didn’t have to risk our careers to do it.” He grinned at her. “Word got out among the villagers that we three were going to the castle. They met us at the access road that cut through the base and went straight to the castle. The old women gave us necklaces they’d woven from local berries, rosaries, and ropes of garlic. The men gave us satchels of wooden spikes and mallets.”

Eden began nibbling on the corner of the pillow she held. When the tablet light again began to fade, she quickly tapped the screen.

“The castle’s curtain wall was intact, but trees had grown up through the bailey. The keep’s main entrance had been overgrown by a thick vine. If the villager’s granddaughter had somehow been able to cross the base and get into the castle grounds, it didn’t look as if she’d gone into the castle. But it was dark. For all we knew, she’d found another way in.

“We cut our way through the vines and stepped into the great hall. It was a sultry summer night outside, but inside it was ice cold. The villagers had given us three torches, and damn if we didn’t need them. We hadn’t moved halfway through the hall when our flashlights gave out.

“We heard a faint sound upstairs, like a girl’s cry. We ran toward the stairs. The grandfather hurried ahead of us. Midway up the staircase, a wind caught our torches, extinguishing them. When we looked up the stairs, there was a man standing in silhouette on the broad landing.”

“The vampire?”

Ty shrugged. “We couldn’t tell. He was just a dark shadow in front of the big window.”

“Maybe it was a suit of armor.”

“It was a man. He moved back when the grandfather rushed up the stairs.”

Eden gasped. “What happened then?”

“I don’t know. That’s the part that I can’t explain. I remember seeing the grandfather run up the stairs. A few minutes later, he came back down, walking very slowly. I looked around for the shadow man, but he was gone.

“We asked the old man if he found his granddaughter. Without looking at us, without any inflection in his voice whatsoever, he said she was not in the castle. He wanted to leave, so we walked him outside.

“Some of the guys from the team were moving into position around the castle when we walked out.” Ty looked at her, watching for her reaction. “We’d been in there twenty-four hours.”

“You lost a day? You don’t remember anything?”

“Nope. But,” he gave her mysterious look, “Kit had developed a white streak in his hair. It’s hard to see because he’s blond. That’s why he keeps his hair so short. We were both extremely exhausted over the next several days. The medic discovered we were dehydrated and anemic.”

Eden sucked in a breath of air. “No. What happened to the old man and his granddaughter? Was she ever found?”

“The girl was discovered unconscious in a field about a mile away from the castle. She had no visible injuries, but the villagers said the hospital had had to give her several pints of blood. She had no recollection of what had happened to her, either. And sadly, her grandfather was never again the same. He died a few months later.”

“That gives me chills.” She narrowed her eyes and glared at Ty. “You made that up whole story up, didn’t you?”

“That was a true story. If you don’t believe me, ask Kit.”

Eden put the tablet away. “I don’t want to read about vampires right now.” She settled back against the headboard, still hugging her pillow. “I’m going to have nightmares, thank you very much.”

“Don’t worry about it. Germany’s a long way away from here.”

“But apparently vampires can travel long distances with the speed of light. So if they’re there, they could be here, too.”

“True.” He didn’t even try to argue with her.

“Will you stay for a while, Ty?”

“Yeah. Come closer.” He held his arm up so that she could move next to him.

Eden wiggled over to him and set her head on his shoulder. “I don’t like bad guys. I know vampires aren’t real, but bad guys are. They eat children and kill grandfathers.” She was silent for a minute. “Tomorrow night, you can tell me a happy story.”

He sighed. “I don’t know any. I only know about monsters.”

She looked up at him. “How about the story of when you met Kit?”

“Definitely not that one.” He touched his fingers to her face. The only light in the dark room came from the green glow of her alarm clock. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she heard the darkness in his voice. “You may have to be in charge of the happy stories, Eden. Close your eyes. I won’t let anything in this house harm you.”

Eden burrowed deeper into his arms. “So he says, after telling me how porous the house is and how easily a vampire can breach it.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ty stayed with Eden for an hour after she’d drifted off to sleep. The house was quiet when he left her room. And dark. He prowled the hallways, trying to ease his persistent restlessness. Downstairs, he checked the windows and doors to make sure they were still locked. Moonlight from the large window in the entranceway cast angular shadows down the hall.

He ended up in the hallway outside the basement door. It was easy to conjure up the eyes that had haunted him since his adolescence. He could look away, blink, but, in the darkness, there was nowhere to hide from the memory. The ski mask had hidden the bastard’s face, just as the tinted window of the Mercedes had. But he had a name now, thanks to Eden.

Jefferson Holbrook. Apparently, his dad’s association with the WKB went way back.

Ty told himself to open the basement door, walk down the steps, face what waited down there. For chrissake, he was no puling fourteen-year-old bent naked over his father’s desk. He was a man, equal in strength to his father or Holbrook, or the thugs Holbrook had brought with him that last time.

He wiped his hands on his jeans. It was too fucking much drama, this panic about his past. His dad was dead. Ty would never have the chance to make him face the consequences of his sins. The lucky bastard. But Holbrook was still alive and possibly up to his old tricks.

It was time to face his childhood bogeyman.

He took the secret stairs to the bunker. No one was in the big conference room. The hall light had been dimmed. He didn’t know if Max and Greer were down still there. While he’d been sleeping down there, they’d occasionally bunked there, too. They kept odd hours. One of them was usually manning the command center.

He stepped into the bunkroom, quietly retrieving his gear from his locker.

“What are you doing?” Greer asked.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

“You’re going out.”

Ty didn’t answer him.

“Blade, it ain’t smart to go alone. I’m coming with.” He launched himself off his bunk.

“Forget it. I don’t need a ride-along.” Especially not for a personal vendetta. Greer was still gearing up when Ty stalked out of the bunkroom on his way upstairs.

He checked the clip in his Beretta as he went through the hallway to the garage. He wasn’t going to kill Holbrook tonight. Or any time soon. He was just going to screw with him for a while like the old fuck buddies they were.

Ty opened the garage door and started the engine in one of the team’s SUVs. Before he could pull out, the hallway door opened. Val, Kelan, and Greer came out in full night gear. Val tapped the back hatch as Greer got in the backseat and Kelan took shotgun.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” Ty asked.

“We’re going for ice cream. What are you doing?” Val answered as he deposited his M-16 and sawed-off in the secret compartment in the back. He set a couple of vests and four sets of night-vision goggles next to the guns, then hopped in the backseat.

“Who called you out?” Ty asked.

“Max,” Kelan answered. He handed Ty a comm unit. “Put your ears on.”

“Meddling son of a bitch,” Ty growled as he inserted the earpiece.

“Yeah. And I’m giving up my beauty sleep, so we better get to kill something,” Val growled. “Let’s go.”

They drove the hour northwest to the WKB compound. Their first stop was at Holbrook’s guesthouse. There were no cars parked where they could see. They drove around the house once, then parked next to the kitchen entrance. Inside, everything was as it had been a few days earlier, except the house was now dark. Someone had come by to shut off lights.