"Where'd he go?" he gasped.
"The park, up ahead," Mac said, not sounding winded at all. "You know where it is?"
John nodded.
"Meet us there." Then Mac raced off, leaving John to follow at a slower pace. He reached the park a few minutes later.
Several of the overhead halogen lights had been broken, leaving the park in shadowy darkness. At first, it was hard to see anything, but then John spotted a shape moving just beyond a small cropping of bushes. He headed over to it, and when he reached the small clearing where Mac and Dirk stood, he saw what commanded their attention.
Steeling himself as he did every time he had to view another homicide, John took a closer look. "Damn," he muttered. Death was always ugly, but some deaths were worse than others.
She couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty, he guessed. Pretty and blonde, just like the others Brody had killed. Her clothes hung in shreds about her body and from the markings on
her,
John was left with no doubts about whether vampires were capable of sex—or rape.
Though she'd clearly fought for her life, she hadn't died from being beaten. The two puncture wounds on the side of her pale neck shone like ugly dark beacons; harbingers of death.
John placed his fingers against her throat, searching for a pulse. It was done more out of habit than because he thought there was a chance she was still alive. There wasn't.
He spotted her small purse tossed off to the side and picked it up. Unzipping the main compartment, he reached in and found her wallet. Inside was her student ID; she'd only been a freshman. Behind that was a family picture.
Dirk slipped beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You should come with me."
John looked at him, confused, until he heard Mac draw his sword from the sheath strapped across his back.
"Wait," he protested, shrugging off Dirk's hand and moving forward to intercept Mac. "You can't do that. She's not a vampire. She's just a kid."
"If I don't do this, in two nights she's not going to be a kid anymore. She'll be a bloodsucking monster."
John held up the picture of her with her parents. "She's got a family," he argued.
"They all do, John," Mac shot back. "That's what makes what we have to do so goddamn hard. But it still has to be done. If you don't like it, then help us find the vampire who did this. We have to kill him so he never does this to anyone else."
Drawing a deep breath, John nodded. He knew Mac was right. He didn't have to like it, but he was playing a whole new game—
their
game—and he had to learn the rules.
He stepped back but didn't turn around. It wasn't his nature to hide from the truth, no matter how ugly.
The blade slid cleanly through. There was no blood.
"Now what?"
John asked after swallowing hard.
"Now, I go get the truck so we can haul the body back to the admiral's place," Mac said.
"We have a dumping ground there," Dirk explained.
"You stay here and make sure no one comes by," Mac said just before he walked off.
John turned to Dirk and noticed the other man's expression. "You don't look so hot," he observed.
Dirk gave him a wry,
humorless
smile. "We've had to behead a lot of bodies in the last year, and it's never easy to do. But this is the first time we've had to do a woman. And this one looked a lot like Mac's little sister did when she was this age. That had to have been hard for him to do."
John felt his admiration for Mac grow. He suspected that Mac had made a good leader in the military, never asking others to do what he himself was not willing to do.
John heard giggling and looked across the quad to see two female students walking, their heads bowed together as they talked. They were leaning into each other and from the way they kept stepping off the edge of the side-
walk,
John thought maybe they'd started their evening's festivities several hours earlier. They were well on their way to a serious hangover the next morning.
"If I were Brody," John said thoughtfully, "those two would be next on my list."
"You stay here while I follow them," Dirk said, causing John to glance at him sharply. "No
offense
, John, but Brody would make short work of you."
John inwardly flinched. "Ouch. I think you just dented my ego. I'm not exactly helpless, you know."
Dirk clapped him on the back. "Yeah, well, just remember what Mac said—it takes a hell of a lot of bullets to stop one vampire."
"Fine, I understand, but what about you? You can't just walk up to those women and tell them a vampire is after them. They'll think you're nuts."
Dirk gave him a bemused look. "Relax. They won't even know I'm there. Stay here and wait for Mac. I doubt
Brody'll
come back to this site, so you'll be safe. I
gotta
go—we'll talk more
later
."
And then, with a speed that seemed inhuman, Dirk left him and hurried across the park to follow the girls. John watched them disappear and then looked around. Even for someone who was not easily spooked, the darkness in this particular section of the park was unusually disquieting. When he heard the snap of a twig behind him, he whirled around, pulling his gun.
"Easy, Detective," a familiar voice said as a shadow moved behind the tree. "It's me, Sheldon Harris,
aka
the vampire. We met last night, remember?"
"What are you doing here?" John asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion. He wondered how much longer Mac was going to be, not sure whether he wanted the man to hurry or take his time.
"I'm here for the same reason you are. We're both looking for Simon Brody." John saw the vampire's gaze flicker to the body on the ground; saw his eyes glow red and heard him swear under his breath.
"Yeah," John empathized. "We didn't get here in time—again."
"At least you severed the head to keep her from rising."
"I didn't do—"
"Hold it right there.
Campus Security."
Shit.
A beam of light hit John's face. "You'd better go," he said as quietly as he could, hoping the vampire would hear him. So far the security guard had seen only him, but as soon as he spotted the body lying at John's feet, things were going to get ugly.
As the guard moved closer, John saw Harris fade back into the shadows.
"Do you want me to kill him?"
The offer floated on a breeze and caught John by such surprise that at first, he wasn't sure how to respond. Then he saw the shadows move, as if Harris was coming back, and hurried to prevent further disaster. "No."
The shadow receded again, but John heard a soft chuckle and belatedly realized the vampire was joking with him. John, however, wasn't amused, and vowed that the next time he saw the man—vampire—he would tell him just how funny he hadn't found the joke. Then he forgot all about the vampire because the security guard finally noticed the body at John's feet and the proverbial shit hit the fan.
Not wanting to be accidentally shot, John allowed himself to be searched, allowed his gun to be confiscated and his hands cuffed. As he waited for the local police to arrive, he caught sight of a familiar Expedition. Mac looked at him from the front seat, a concerned expression on his face. He made a gesture with his hand, but John shook his head slightly in response. He felt reasonably certain that after being questioned, he'd be released. At least, he hoped he would be.
Harris watched as the detective was hauled off and found himself grudgingly admiring the man. There was absolutely no reason why John
Boehler
should have protected him, and yet he had—for the second time now. Maybe it was just a part of the detective's personality. That same quality that made him want to be a detective also had him protecting those who were innocent. Not that Harris was exactly innocent. He'd been responsible for many deaths—including that young woman's at the park, indirectly.
The irony of the situation haunted him. His effort to rid the world of a psychotic killer had resulted in an even worse threat being loosed on the community. Harris felt the responsibility of it like another black mark on his eternally damned soul; another spiritual weight around his neck dragging him farther into the fiery pits of hell. Already the flames were licking at his heels; driving the air from his lungs.
Taking a deep breath to prove he still could, Harris picked a direction at random and began to walk, not consciously aware that he was headed toward St. Magnus Cathedral until the building loomed before him.
Harris stood staring at it, feeling almost lost. Moisture collected in his eyes, no doubt from the bite of the wind, and he blinked it back.
As if drawn, he moved toward the front doors. It was time to test another myth, he thought resolutely. Reaching out, he grabbed the handle of the front door, almost sagging in relief when all he felt was the cool metal against his palm.
Pulling the door open, he placed a foot across the threshold. Nothing happened, so he stepped all the way inside and found himself standing in an elegant foyer. The building was old, and the
odor
of the ages wrapped around him in a welcome embrace.
He continued forward, pushing open the chapel doors to glance inside where he saw lit candles glowing on the altar, flickering and casting shadows across the walls and ceiling. The place was mostly empty with only a few late-night worshippers sitting alone in the pews, absorbed in their worries and thoughts.
When he was younger, he'd attended church with his mother, but that had been so long ago.
Now, Harris moved toward a pew near the back and sat down. For several minutes, he sat there, tense, as if waiting for the heavens to open up or lightning to strike him down. The sanctuary was filled with an overwhelming yet reverent silence. For the first time in over a year, Harris felt an easy peace come over him. He breathed deep, wanting it to last forever.
As the events of the past year intruded, he braced his hands against the pew in front of him and leaned his head down against them, letting the guilt and horror of the things he'd done beat at him.
"No matter what your sins, God loves you," a kindly voice said beside him, causing him to look up.
"I don't think so, Father," Harris replied, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable. "In fact, given my current situation, I must conclude that He hates me." He stood and the priest moved aside to let him pass.
"God has all manner of tests to prove our worthiness. Though yours may seem unusually difficult, His purpose will be revealed—in time."
Harris stopped and turned back to the priest. "Well, Father, I hope He hurries, because I'm not sure how much more I can take."
"Sometimes, living is the ultimate test."
Harris left the church, the priest's words echoing in his head.
Jessica sat on the bar stool in one of the local college hangouts, nursing a Long Island Tea.
She'd had a difficult time sneaking out of the mansion with Beth and
Lanie
sitting downstairs, but she'd done it, even managing to steal the keys to someone's car so she'd have a way to get into town. Mac and Dirk might have experience killing vampires, but she'd been hunting them practically since birth and was willing to stack her twenty-five years against their twelve months any day.
The key to vampire hunting, she knew, was to make the creature come to the hunter. That was why she was at the bar. She was in its territory, offering herself up as bait by being alone and pretending to be drunk. From what little she'd read in the old newspapers Charles kept stacked in his library, someone like Brody wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity of a vulnerable female college student out all alone.
She took another swallow of her drink and pretended to sway a bit on the stool as she leaned forward to rub her knee, which really did hurt. The second-story balcony of the mansion ran all the way around the outside of the house, but there had been no good place to jump down. Not to mention that the short skirt she wore was not the best for such gymnastics.
In the end, she'd misjudged her landing and ended up on her knees in the gravel, where several tiny stones bit into the unprotected flesh. The wound hadn't been bad enough to change her plans, though.
She checked her watch again. It was almost two in the morning. She had no doubt that by now, she had been missed and the note she'd left explaining her absence had been found. Charles and the others would be worried, but she hoped that when they found out she'd killed the vampire, they'd understand.
Now, if Brody would just cooperate, she thought, looking at her watch—again.
"I don't think he's going to show."
A young man, looking big enough to play on the university football team, sidled up to her, his drunken smile overly friendly.
"He'll show." She turned back to her drink, but he didn't take the hint.
"I could keep you company," he suggested, coming to stand by the empty stool beside her.
"Really, don't feel you must."