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CHAPTER ONE 
FINN
“No, Finn, stop!”
I stare at Alexei in disbelief. “It’ll be over with quickly… I know it hurts. You just… you just have to do it.”
He shakes his head like he can’t believe I’d betray him like this. It’s enough to make me feel a little guilty, but not enough to make me stop.
“I can’t, Finn,” Alexei says, more conviction to his voice this time.
“You don’t have a choice, Alexei. This… this is the only option you get.”
Pain flashes across his face as he picks up the gaudy pink boots with shimmering toes. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”
“Think of how happy Claude will be when he opens his present on Christmas morning. Think of the joy on his face.”
“But then… but then I’ll have to see him wear them.” Alexei shudders like this is a huge deal. Like this really is physically causing him pain. Honestly, with the way he’s acting, it might be, but it’s also giving me pure joy. Am I evil? Does that make me evil? It might…
Do I care?
Nah… not at all. I love it, honestly.
I feel like they’ve had their fair share of being mean to humans, so it’s my time to watch the vampires suffer.
It’s so much fun watching Alexei’s pain as he carries the box of boots over to the cashier while I try my hardest not to grin. Hanging around Alexei for as long as I have has taught me that getting caught grinning will lead to many curses and maybe even a threat or two.
“You have such exquisite taste!” the young woman says as she looks at the boots before looking up at Alexei.
The Russian vampire is decked out head to toe in black. We’d just left work and he’d dragged me off in the hopes of helping him find a Christmas gift for Claude, and I felt oddly privileged to do so. When I first joined the Vampire Related Crimes unit a couple of years ago, he absolutely despised me (or seemed to). He thought humans belonged nowhere near the VRC, but now he’s asking me to go shopping with him.
“Hmm,” Alexei growls.
The young woman seems a bit worried now, especially after getting a good look at Alexei’s expression. It’s a unique mixture of despair and irritation on his handsome face. “Um… will… this be all?”
“God yes,” he says.
“They will just… pop with your clothes,” she says, which they sure would. Only bright part on an otherwise quite dark vampire. I think I’d pay money to see Alexei strutting around with them strapped to his feet.
“Hell no. I will never wear these things. I would burn my feet off before I would wear them. I would rather walk barefoot across knives,” he says, which sounds a bit dramatic, but I guess when you’re a vampire and can heal almost instantly… who am I kidding, it’s extremely dramatic. “But he bought me a horse,” Alexei adds, like he has to explain why he’s making such a purchase… one as horrific as shoes. “What do you buy a man who gets you a horse?”
“Um… I don’t know? Another horse?” The woman’s quite uncertain as she rings him up.
“God no. He’d only like it if it was pink and sparkled. Poor thing would rather be dead than look so gaudy,” Alexei decides, even though I’m almost positive the horse wouldn’t give a shit what it looked like and would very much prefer life over death.
“Mmm hmm…” the woman says before quickly handing him the receipt and wishing him a merry day.
Alexei doesn’t look overly merry as he picks up his package and walks off. Instead, he glances over at me. “If you tell anyone about this experience… you might not make it.”
“You’re going to off me for helping you pick out some shoes? Alexei… I thought you loved me,” I say as I grab my chest to make sure he knows that if he can be dramatic, I can be dramatic right back.
He doesn’t seem to care or notice my mocking of him as he holds the bag away from his body like there’s acid inside that might splash onto him and eat his skin. It’s cold out, the winter breeze hitting me even with my coat zipped all the way up. Snow crunches beneath my feet, which is the only positive to this overly chilled experience.
Of course, Alexei doesn’t notice the temperature, but the vampires seem to prefer winter where the days stay gloomy and the sun isn’t out as long. It also keeps my eyes from feeling stressed by the sunlight on these overcast days.
We cross the street and head toward the parking lot that’s a couple of blocks away from the store we’d just left. This side of town gets unreasonably busy in the evenings with the more popular restaurants sprinkled around, requiring us to park a good distance from the store Alexei threatened to burn down on our way over. I doubt they’d have let us within a hundred feet of the store if they knew all the shit Alexei threatened to do to it.
Yet there he is with his bag and his grimace.
“He better like these things.”
I glance over at him, unsure how he could possibly think Claude wouldn’t. Honestly, I’m positive Alexei could dig him up a clump of dirt and Claude would love it just because it was from Alexei. “He has literally ogled them every time we passed the store. When I told him they hurt my eyes, he told me that was because Marcus’s ‘gloom and doom’ is wearing off on me.”
Alexei shakes his head. “You are not gloom and doom.”
“Thank you! I am the very definition of perfection,” I decide.
“Eh.”
“Excuse me?” I ask.
Alexei turns and looks me in the eyes before going, “Eh,” like I honestly needed him to clarify the noise.
That’s when he stops and sniffs the air, which would be weird and creepy if I wasn’t used to this bunch.
Instead, I’m honestly a bit put on edge. “What?”
“Blood.”
“Well, that’s not at all concerning and/or creepy,” I say, feeling cautious as I look around. Thankfully, I have my tranq gun on me because after all the shit I’ve been through, I’ve decided that I’m not going anywhere without a weapon.
Since we are at the car, Alexei stops outside it and tosses the shoes inside before moving with me. I debate whether or not I should pull my gun out. I don’t want to cause alarm to people who are just going about their day, but I also don’t want to pull it too late and chance someone getting hurt. Instead, I keep my hand steady at my side, ready to push my jacket back the moment I need it as I follow Alexei who is like my very own scent dog.
He wanders off the main path and down an alleyway that clearly isn’t traveled much if the thick snow has anything to say. But what draws my attention is the footprints leading away from a door, blood coloring each step left behind.
I start to follow the footprints, but Alexei puts a hand up, stopping me.
“Hold on,” he says as he pulls out his phone and makes a call for backup, detailing where we’re at, but what catches me the most is when he says, “I can smell blood, likely multiple dead.”
That’s the moment I hear a noise. It’s muffled, but I swear it sounds like someone screaming. Pulling my gun, I move toward the door of the abandoned apartment, but Alexei pushes in front of me before pulling open the door. The windows are busted out from kids throwing rocks through them, but even so, I can’t see anything inside from out here.
When there’s the possibility of someone being killed or hurt, we have full permission to enter a building, but it’d still be nice to have more backup when we have no idea what we’re getting into. The issue is that if we wait too long, will those who are still alive be dead?
Alexei doesn’t call out as he enters the darkness, and it makes me question if he thinks the assailant is still inside… and we’re going to be up against them before too long. He makes a direct line toward an open doorway before stopping, and it only takes me a moment to understand why.
Sitting in the middle of the floor is a man holding what I realize is a severed head. Bodies are littered around him, blood streaked across the floor and walls, making me realize why Alexei was able to smell it from so far away.
The man lets out an anguished noise before leaning over the head he holds, clarifying that he’s not holding the head out of enjoyment but out of devastation.
“Are you okay?” I ask, voice gentle.
The man, who had to have heard us enter, jumps and his head snaps over to us. He seems frightened as he leans away. “Please, no, no. Please,” he says with an English accent, but I don’t know what he’s begging for. Is he afraid we’re going to finish off what the last person started? It appears that he’s the only one left alive.
“We need to follow the footprints before the assailant gets away,” Alexei says as he reaches for me.
“We can’t leave him alone,” I say, not sure what to do with him.
Alexei hesitates before I see the man cringe back even more. He almost buckles to the ground, dropping the head as he tries to scramble back.
“No, no, no,” he cries, and Alexei’s head snaps around a moment before he’s thrown across the hallway. He slams into the wall so hard that the drywall caves around him. Knowing that I won’t be able to help Alexei unless I draw the vampire assailant away, I put some distance between us as I hold my gun steady and rush into the room that the dead people are in while fear ignites inside me.
I’ve dealt with many vampires, but only Watson has ever struck this level of fear in me.
Suddenly, there are hands on me from behind and I’m torn from the room in a harsh jerk. I want to fight against them, but the vampire clutching onto me keeps moving, dragging me up the stairs as quickly as he can while I struggle to get my feet under me. Twisting, I realize it’s the man who was holding the severed head who is now trying to protect me.
“I can’t leave Alexei,” I say, but his grip on me is tight. He gives me no chance to move as he pulls me into a room and cups a hand over my mouth while he presses himself against the wall. I can smell the blood on his hands and feel the way they shake. It’s doing nothing to calm the fear threatening to burst out of my heart.
And as I hear noise outside the room, I realize that it doesn’t matter if I left Alexei or not, the vampire is coming for us, and I don’t know if I have the means to stop him.
The man holding onto me tightens his grip, clearly hearing how close the vampire is getting to us. The killer will easily be able to follow our scent into this room and then what? Would it be best to run? Should we get outside? But Alexei is downstairs; I can’t leave him.
Alexei is one of the fastest vampires I know—sometimes, I swear he can even be faster than Marcus—but that monster flung him across the room with unbelievable speed. Alexei didn’t even hear him enter.
And now, he’s right outside the room. My hand is sweating as I grip the tranq gun tightly, wishing I had my real gun. The tranqs will put him down, but they’ll take too long. It’ll take a moment for them to work and during that time, we’ll be completely vulnerable.
Fear continues to build inside me, and I jump as the door is thrown inward. It smashes against the wall. In the dark room, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where to shoot, but the man’s shadowy outline is clear enough that I lift my gun and aim.
He steps out of the trajectory with ease, and even though I was expecting that, I wasn’t expecting him to dodge the second bullet as well.
Anxiously, I realize that I have absolutely nowhere to go but out the window and there’s no way I’d get it open and through it before he could grab me.
I hear a noise and I swear it’s a chuckle, like he’s enjoying this. He takes a step toward me a moment before he turns his head, but he’s a second too late as Alexei drives something metal into his chest. The vampire seems surprised, but he’s fast to recover and he grabs Alexei by the throat before Alexei can even react.
I take the moment of distraction to shoot him right in the head. He jerks back, releasing Alexei who staggers back, metal rod still in hand, blood dripping from it. Then the vampire stills as I hear a noise downstairs, like he’s heard something concerning—something more concerning than the three of us—before turning to the window and busting through it. Before any of us can react, he slips through and disappears from sight.
The man who had brought me up here releases me before dropping to the ground, like his legs can no longer support his weight. I rush over to Alexei who is leaning against the wall. He doesn’t seem to be able to talk from the vampire crushing his throat, and I find that I don’t know what to do. I tranqed the vampire, so he should go down… I should go after him, but I’m afraid to go alone.
I felt insane fear when he came for me… fear I hadn’t felt since dealing with Watson.
“F-Fuck,” Alexei whispers, voice low and gravelly as he heals.
“Are you okay?” I ask, relieved he’s with me.
He nods while rubbing his neck before tilting his head as I hear footsteps on the stairs. It’s not a moment later before there’s a mixture of humans and vampires reaching us, trying to help us and figure out what happened. Since our team is off duty, seeing as it’s after hours, it’s people I don’t often work with but recognize. I’m sure Marcus will hear what happened before long and rush straight here, confident I’ve gotten myself in something I shouldn’t have.
Which… I’m starting to think has happened.
“Are you okay?” a human woman asks us.
Quickly, I gather myself and nod. “Yes. The assailant escaped through the window. I did tranq him so he should go down quickly and be able to be taken in,” I say… hoping, more than anything, that’s true. I wish I’d gotten him twice at least, especially with how strong he was, but one should slow him for sure.
“We’re on it,” a vampire says.
Since the human trafficking sales were busted and Bowman, the last chief, was convicted of the crimes he’d been committing against humans, the trafficking stopped. It also allowed Deputy Chief Burns, a human, to take over as chief. And with it, she authorized a merging of the human and vampire departments.
While the VRC is still primarily vampires dealing with vampire-related things, it used to suffer from a lack of employees capable of doing the jobs needed. Often the only vampires fit were older ones who could handle blood and work in less than ideal situations. So having humans now on hand to help us was clearly needed and appreciated. So far, it has resulted in a safer environment and fewer issues, though of course, there are still people refusing to comply.
But during times like these when there aren’t many vampire detectives or officers on staff, the humans can fill in and help. They step to the side and allow a vampire to help the distraught man, just in case he were to attack from blood loss, but he hadn’t attacked me and had even held me close.
Giving Alexei a hand, I pull him off the wall he’d been leaning against and head down the stairs to follow the surviving vampire. He stops outside the room with the bodies and stands there, staring in until I set a hand on his back, not wanting him to see any more of it than he’s already seen.
“Come on,” I say, tone gentle. “It’s okay. Come on.”
He slowly follows me outside into the cold night air as the others spread out to look for the tranqed vampire that couldn’t have gotten far.
“What’s your name?”
He gives me nothing but silence.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask, hoping for anything.
But he’s quiet as he stands there, staring at the building that still houses the bodies of the dead.
“Could we get him some help for shock?” I ask before being informed that emergency services are on their way. I stand with him until a medical team arrives and escorts him to their vehicle where they’ll get him some blood and care. He seems almost confused as he goes, but he willingly follows them over to their equipment. I watch them check him over as they load him into the ambulance and pull away from the scene, carrying with them the only survivor.
“Are you okay?” I ask Alexei.
“Fine…” He’s quiet before catching my eyes. “Does Marcus move that fast?”
“I’ve seen you outmaneuver him,” I admit, since he’s clearly thinking the same thing I did when I saw the man attack.
He nods slowly. “Yeah… that’s… that’s what I was thinking too. I didn’t even fucking hear him.”
There’s a ruckus, and before even turning my head, I know it’s Marcus and feel immediate relief.
“What happened, are you okay?” he asks as he reaches me, but I realize he must have brought Claude with him because Alexei is suddenly lifted off the ground.
“My baby!” Claude cries as Alexei looks more horrified than when he battled the vampire. His face is red as he tries shoving Claude off who has his head pressed against Alexei’s chest (with him still off the ground, of course).
“Dammit, Claude! Stop!”
“Do you want me to do that to you too?” Marcus asks.
“Not really. I’m okay, thank you. But I tranqed a vampire who is insanely powerful. He—”
Marcus gets a strange look on his face as he tips my chin up and breathes in my scent.
“What?” I ask.
He looks odd as he slowly drops his hand. “Nothing. Go on.”
While I know it’s not “nothing” I also know that I need to keep focused. “We need to find him. He… slaughtered a bunch of people. I tranqed him once. It might not be enough to put him down, but it’ll be enough to slow him if we can find him,” I say.
“I’m on it,” he says. “Claude, please stay here with Finn.”
“I can help,” I say, not wanting to be useless.
“I’m probably going to have to run if there’s the chance he’s trying to escape, and I don’t think you’ll be able to keep up. I’ll call you.”
I hesitate but know that I’ll only be holding him back if they try to keep to my pace. “Please be careful. He… wasn’t right, Marcus.” And that is what made me fear him as I had the man who’d taken my arm and leg.
He nods and moves over to where the assailant had jumped out of the window and starts from there. I still feel like I need to help, though, and hate the idea of Marcus going alone.
“I’ll go,” Alexei says, finally free of Claude’s torture—I mean affection.
Claude opens his mouth, but Alexei gives him a look. “You and Finn can follow behind.”
And then he’s gone.
I look at Claude, who shrugs. “You know how they are. Stubborn, don’t listen, yet adorable. I knew better than to dream of ever holding that man back.”
“You’d call Marcus adorable?” I ask suspiciously.
“Like in an ‘Aw, how adorable as he rages and barks orders’ kind of way, you know? It’s a unique blend.”
“Yeah… so adorable,” I tease as I head off in the direction they went, hating the idea of them being alone, even though I know there are others around and we’re not far behind. The thing is, from what I can guess, it seems like all of the deceased in the building were vampires considering the way they were killed. Humans die so easily against a vampire, but when a vampire kills another, they usually do it by beheading. So if the assailant can go up against four vampires and come out unscathed, will my tranq even slow him down?
“I hate not being able to run like the others,” I growl as I take off at a jog. While my prosthetic leg works well enough to allow me to run, prolonged or extremely hard running becomes painful, so I have to be mindful of it.
“I shall carry you!” Claude declares before scooping me up like a child and taking off. The wind whips through my hair and the cold makes my eyes water as I feel absolutely ridiculous zooming past people. I feel like people are going to look at me like I’m a child instead of a detective.
Claude doesn’t seem to mind as he comes to a stop and looks around. He sniffs the air before grabbing my hair in one hand and pulling me close to sniff me.
“Why the hell do you two keep sniffing me?” I grumble. Being trotted around is bad enough; now I’m being thoroughly snorted.
“You smell… interesting.”
“That’s concerning!” I say. “So is being held like this!”
Claude seems to have fully forgotten about following after Marcus yet doesn’t seem prone to put me down at any point. “Who touched you?”
“The vampire who tried to hide me did. Why?” I ask.
Claude sniffs me again then rubs what looks like blood off my neck and licks it. Licks it.
“Whyyy? You don’t just lick the blood from dead people off someone’s throat,” I say, unsure why I have to even mention this.
He starts backing up toward the direction we’d just come from while looking absolutely intrigued. While Claude can be quite… unique at times, when he gets that look on his face, I have learned to pay attention.
“I thought we were meeting up with them,” I say.
“I want to see the bodies,” he decides as he quickly turns around and runs back with me in his arms.
He goes to barge through the door of the abandoned apartment until a human steps in front of it. “I’m sorry, you can’t enter.”
Claude simply places a hand on her face to push her out of the way, drops me on the ground, and lets himself into the room. He’s careful not to step in anything or touch anything as he makes a beeline straight over to the head the man was holding. As I watch, he stoops down to look at the face. With the long hair, I think it’s a woman’s head, but in the shadow-cast room, it’s hard to tell.
“Well fuck me.”
“Did you know her?” I ask.
“Vaguely. Marcus knew her better. I don’t believe they were close, but they knew each other. What did the guy they took to the hospital look like?”
“Dark blond hair… he was a little taller than me, but not much. He looked young, maybe early twenties.”
“Hmm, without a picture, I’m not sure, I guess.”
My phone rings and I’m happy to see it’s Marcus when I pull it out. With some more “Hmms” Claude leaves the room after glancing at the other bodies, so I follow him outside the building and put it on speaker.
“Hey,” I say.
“We lost the scent. He must have gotten in a car. I’m going to see if any of the local businesses have cameras operating in this area and see if we can get an ID on the car,” he says.
“I’ll be there to help,” I say, but Claude pulls the phone toward him before I can ask exactly where they’re at.
“Marcus, one of the deceased is a woman I recognize. I don’t remember her name, but she—” Claude starts before Marcus cuts him off.
“Yeah, it’s Isabella, I could smell it on Finn.”
“Were you close to her?” I ask.
“Not very. I honestly hadn’t seen her for a good hundred or so years,” he says, but it surprises me how well both of them were able to smell a familiar scent on me for not being overly familiar with the woman. I’ll have to ask Marcus about it more later.
Marcus sighs and I can tell he’s thinking about something he’s not quite sharing. “Let me finish up here. Finn, can you contact the hospital and make them aware that we need to speak with the man they just took in before he leaves?”
“Of course,” I say. While making the call, I head in the direction Marcus and Alexei had gone.
It takes about five minutes before I manage to get someone who knows anything. “They haven’t arrived yet, but I will inform them as soon as they do.”
“Oh, thank you,” I start, but I’m uncertain how they haven’t arrived yet. While there is no hospital on this side of town, it shouldn’t take more than ten or so minutes when not running an emergency. “Has there been an issue? Seems to have been enough time to arrive.”
She hesitates. “Let me look into that. With it being a nonemergency, it might have been something as simple as a train slowing them down. Do you have a number I can use to call you?”
I give her my number and she thanks me before hanging up. Honestly, I feel uneasy as I continue my walk toward Marcus.
“You have your concerned face on,” Claude says.
“Yeah, I don’t feel right about this,” I say as I shake my head and turn toward my car. “Come on.”
“Should we contact Marcus?”
“I will,” I say. “But I don’t want him to stop what he’s doing in case I’m worrying over nothing.”
“Makes sense.”
When I call Marcus, Alexei answers. “Finn? Marcus is speaking with someone.”
“Okay, I’m going to head to the hospital. I feel a bit uneasy about what’s going on. I’m going to get a few people over there just in case the vampire needs some protection, alright? I shouldn’t have sent him off alone when we have no idea what’s happening.”
“Yes, but you tranqed the assailant. He shouldn’t have been able to go far,” Alexei says.
“Right… but maybe he still could,” I say.
“Alright, I’ll tell Marcus. You’re with Claude?”
“I am.”
“Don’t leave his sight, you hear me? He may look blindingly unhelpful, but he’s quite reliable.”
I glance over at Claude who can surely hear what’s going on in this conversation, but he just flashes me a huge smile as we reach the car. “I won’t leave him.”
“Good. Let me know what else you need.”
“I will,” I say as I get into the driver’s seat and start the car. Claude gets in and buckles his seat belt even though he would surely live through any car crash. Then he looks in the back seat and gasps.
I grab his face and shove it forward. “Do not look at that.”
“There’s a bag… in the back… from my favorite store,” he whispers, a quiver to his voice.
“Keep focused,” I demand, but Claude looks like he’s about to explode from pure love. How the hell he and Alexi mesh so well is beyond me, but at least Alexei won’t have to worry about whether or not Claude will love his gift. Then again, I’m confident Alexei could get him a clump of clay and Claude would cherish it forever.
“I’m so excited.”
“Just don’t let Alexei know you saw the bag. You don’t know what’s in the bag, right?”
“Ecstasy,” he whispers.
Dear god, there’s something wrong with his brain. But he’s beyond excited and I know that when he opens the box on Christmas, Alexei will have found all the pain to be worth it.
“What did you get Alexei?” I ask curiously.
“Oh my god. After seeing this, I’m not sure I got him enough. I bought him the property behind my house to build a barn on. Should I get him something else? Another horse? I’ve been trying to find some builders who could build the entire barn on Christmas Eve but so far, no one seems interested… which I find to be odd.”
“Do you?” I ask as I wonder who this man even is. Who buys someone a freaking lot for Christmas and smacks a barn down on it and thinks it’s not enough? “Claude, maybe you and Alexei could talk together about the barn and then for Christmas you get him a normal gift?”
“Two barns!”
Definitely not what I was implying. “What?”
“I don’t know! I’ve never had to think this hard,” he says, even though he’s literally the smartest of us. He’s extremely studious and intelligent in all of the strangest areas. And then Alexei walks into a room and it’s like the blood flow to his brain gets immediately stopped.
“Trust me. I’m pretty sure Alexei would love to plan the building of the barn together. Because if left to you, it’d probably be pink with mirrors on the ceiling.”
As I slow down at a stoplight he gasps. “Mirrors on the ceiling! I didn’t think of that one!”
“I’m sorry to have helped,” I say, refusing to apologize to Alexei over that.
I follow my GPS’s quickest route to the hospital even though I know how to get there, hoping it’ll take the exact one the ambulance might have taken.
As the path dips out of the central part of the city, cutting through the suburbs to reach the main hospital, Claude glances back at his present again.
“I told you to stop looking.”
“I heard it call to me,” he says. “It’s not my fault.”
I’m not quite sure that’s a legit excuse but I just shake my head until I see Claude lean forward in his seat.
“I’m afraid to say that we might have our answer,” Claude says.
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
“See those stopped cars? The ambulance is off the road just past it,” he says as he quickly calls Marcus and tells him what he’d just told me.
“Finn, please wait for me,” Marcus says through Claude’s phone.
“Marcus, I’m fine. I have Claude here. I have to make sure they’re okay,” I say.
“Dammit, Finn, you need to listen,” he growls.
“And you need to trust me. I’m a detective too,” I say, but I know his fear isn’t unreasonable and that I can’t get upset with him for feeling that way.
Honestly, I want to listen and stay back until he arrives, but I have a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I insisted the man be taken by the emergency vehicle. Why the hell didn’t I send someone with him? Why didn’t I do more? Of course, I thought the tranquilizer would slow the assailant down, and I never imagined how far he’d go, but it’s too late now for regrets. Helping them is all I can do.
Pulling off to the side of the road as close as I can get to the crash, I jump out and run to where the ambulance is off the road, front end buried in a tree that stands solid. Wisps of smoke are trailing from the front end as people stand around, seeming uncertain of what to do, telling me they either just came upon the crash or it happened not that long ago. My guess is they just came on it. It’s far enough off the road that unless someone was coming the way the ambulance had been, they might not have seen it with the trees.
Rushing down the ditch, I jump to the other side and my leg lands wrong, making me stumble, but Claude catches me and steadies me.
“You alright?” he asks.
“Yeah, fine, just slipped,” I say as I gain my footing so I can run toward the ambulance as a man leans in through the open door.
“Are you okay?” I ask, since he appears to have been involved in the crash if the blood on his forehead is any indication.
“I need to get her out. Her leg is pinched and the smoke is getting worse,” he says.
Thankfully, Claude is there because once the man assures him that it won’t cause more damage, Claude’s able to push the console and steering wheel off her and the EMT picks her up, pulling her out and away from the vehicle. I glance into the back, where the door is open. There’s blood inside, but no bodies and no vampire.
Claude snatches me up, tearing me back a moment before the vehicle bursts into flames. It probably wouldn’t have gotten to me back here, but it could have singed me.
“Thanks,” I say as he lets go of me next to where the medical team are. The only ones who are conscious are the male EMT and a woman who seems to be in shock as she holds a clearly broken arm.
“What happened?” I ask the man.
He seems shaky as he tries to find the words. “Something… pushed us off the road. A vampire, I think. It happened so fast that it was like… we were shoved. Then we hit the tree. I was in the back when he tore the door open and ripped the patient out. He tried to run, but the vampire caught up to him… I don’t know what happened to them after that. I was disoriented… I think they went that way,” he says as he points off beyond the trees to a massive field. There are no crops in it this time of year, but I also can’t see anyone out there.
“Are you okay here?” I ask.
He nods as he fusses with the others. “Everyone is stabilized, and I should receive help shortly,” he says.
“Okay,” I say before heading in the direction he indicated.
“Finnigan,” Claude says, giving me a warning tone.
“Yes?” I ask.
“You’re going to go trot off into the field after a crazed vampire without backup?”
“That is the plan,” I say, well aware it’s a stupid fucking plan. “I put him in that vehicle, and I didn’t send backup with him. I should never have done that. I should have known that the tranqs don’t always work on older vampires properly… it was my fuckup, and if there’s a chance I can help him, I have to take it.”
Claude lets out a noise like he’s not so sure about this but before I get too far, I hear his footsteps behind me as he trails after me.
The nice thing about it being cold as hell with snow on the ground is the ability to follow the tracks through the snow as they lead off into the field. About fifty feet from the ambulance there must have been a scuffle and blood has soaked into the snow. Staying clear of their path so I don’t mess with the tracks, I pick up my pace to a jog, not wanting to go too fast and miss something crucial.
“What’s that?” Claude asks as he hesitates.
Hearing a noise, I turn to find Marcus and Alexei raging their way over here. I’m sure I’ll get chewed out for not listening and putting my life in danger. And sure enough, the moment Marcus stops, he’s got that look on his face.
I glower right back at him, just asking him to challenge me on this. “It’s my fault he was in the ambulance.”
He sighs and instead of saying anything, he looks around. “Looks like someone was being dragged here, but he looks unsteady. See the way the tracks waver. I wonder if your tranq actually affected him.”
“Yeah… I’m afraid it’s not looking too good for the victim, though,” I say, feeling anxious. “I should have gone with him.”
“And done what?” Marcus asks.
“I don’t know… at least then I wouldn’t feel so damn guilty,” I say as I pick up the trail again where it leads us off to a small patch of trees. There, the path splits, like the two of them went separate ways. Did the guy who helped me live? Did he actually get away?
“We could have scared him off,” Marcus says. “If he was being affected, it might have made him unsteady enough he didn’t want to face us.”
Following the trail, Marcus slows instead of speeding up, and I can’t help but question why he’s not rushing ahead to help them or stop them.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, but his expression tells me it’s something. Is it because Claude and Alexei are here that he doesn’t want to tell me? Or is it something else?
“Marcus?” I start, but before I can say anything else, I see the vampire lying on the ground.
Rushing over to him, I’m afraid I’ll find him dead from blood loss, or maybe his head is no longer attached, which seems to be the assailant’s preferred method of execution.
“Are you okay?” I ask as I reach down to the man but before I can, Marcus snatches up my hand and pulls me back. Then he takes his foot and holds it against the vampire’s chest to keep him from getting up as his cold eyes stare down at him.
The man opens his eyes but doesn’t seem surprised at all at the treatment Marcus is giving him.
“Marcus, what the hell?” I ask, aghast.
“Ah. Of course it’s you,” the vampire says. “A fitting end.” Then his eyes close and he becomes unresponsive, likely from the copious amount of blood he’s lost. It looks like he’s not healing quickly, either, and probably won’t until he gets to feed.
“You know him?” I ask as I stoop down to help him.
“Grudgingly,” he grumbles, but I’ve never met anyone Marcus is excited to see, so I’m honestly not too concerned by his attitude.
“What’s his name?”
“Bastard,” he says.
Lovely. It’s like working with a child.
“Just leave him here, we need to find the other,” he says as he honestly just leaves him behind to head off. Alexei is always on the mean and brutal boat with Marcus, so he just shrugs and walks off to follow the other tracks, but I stay behind with Claude who seems to be the only one in my party with a heart.
“They are extremely stubborn men,” he decides.
“They are,” I agree as I make a call to the department to inform them of where we’re at and that we’ll need a new medical team to take the man Marcus caringly called Bastard.
Claude stares off toward the field for a long moment before looking at me. “You sure get caught up in some stuff, don’t you, Finn?”
“Seems to be drawn to me… do you know this guy?” I ask.
Claude glances down, like he has to stare long and hard to check whether he does or not. “I know… very little,” he settles on.
“That wasn’t extremely helpful,” I inform him, in case he was curious.
He just smiles at me, giving me the most charming look like I might forget that he and Marcus are very obviously leaving things out and for no clear reason.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWO 
FINN
Last night, finding the escaped killer seemed to be a fruitless venture as we spent hours searching. Once someone had taken the vampire—that I’ve since learned is named Landall—to the hospital for blood, I joined up with Marcus in the search. But it didn’t matter how long they looked; once the killer had hit the road, they could only follow his scent a short distance, telling us he likely got into a vehicle at some point, cutting our search short.
We’d finally gotten home well after two in the morning and immediately went to sleep, but I couldn’t stop feeling antsy about the fact that Marcus had deliberately told me nothing about how he knows these people or why he reacted the way he did.
Since it’s Saturday and the case technically isn’t ours, we don’t have to go in, so I end up sleeping in a bit which means that when I wake up, Marcus is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Artie is in his place, lying on his back, feet up in the air as he takes up half the bed. I roll into him and squeeze the giant Irish wolfhound to me with my good arm.
He looks over at me as his large tail starts thumping the bed, scaring Hela, the small mixed-breed dog that’s around the size of Artie’s head. She realizes I’m up and hurries across my body to greet me with a lick that is completely unwanted.
“No lick,” I grumble as I bury my face against Artie’s fur while Hela decides she’ll scratch my head out from where I have it hidden. It feels partly good and partly painful, so I leave her to it for a little bit until she decides to bite at my hair. “Don’t be a menace.”
She doesn’t care what she is, she only cares that my attention is on her and I’m awake.
After I feel like they’ve both gotten equal pets, I sit up and reach off the bed for my prostheses. With my arm and leg both in place, I get up and scavenge around until I find a pair of sweats and a shirt that I pull on.
With teeth brushed and feeling slightly more alive—ever so slightly—I head into the kitchen where Marcus is staring off into space, which is mildly concerning.
“You gonna fuck up that wall?” I ask.
He glances over at me with eyebrow lifted. “Huh?”
“The way you were looking at it, I assumed it called you a little bitch or something. I bet you’d win. I’ll put money on my man,” I say as I give him an encouraging ass smack.
“No, only you have the guts to say shit like that to me.”
I nod approvingly while questioning when would be a good time to bring up the previous day’s events. “So…”
“I got you donuts.” He points to the counter as I gasp, everything about yesterday forgotten.
“D-Donuts. You know just how to woo me,” I whisper. “My heart… my penis. Rock hard.” While it isn’t really, I’m overly pleased by this.
“Clearly, I need to tell Claude to stop bringing you donuts to work, then. I’m actually concerned now…”
I grin at him as I head over to the counter to grab one. It’s my second-favorite type, but I honestly don’t mind, they’re both amazing and a donut is the best way to start off a day.
“They were out of the chocolate with Bavarian, so I told her I needed one with chocolate and Bavarian. She said no, she has chocolate or Bavarian, but can’t mix them together. They’re sold out. She had one chocolate-covered plain one left. I told her that she could simply scrape the chocolate off the useless donut and put it on the other one. You know what she did?”
Dear god. I’m now concerned that there’s a dash of blood on my donut after this encounter.
“I’m really hoping it’s not cry. Did you make someone cry again? You know we’ve talked about that.”
He refuses to look at me. It’s not a good sign. “No, she didn’t cry. She ate the chocolate-covered one while looking me in the eyes. The fucking… balls on that woman.” He makes some hand gestures like he’s trying to pick up basketball-sized balls.
“Did she have balls?”
“I didn’t check.”
“They need an equivalent for women. I’ve seen some brave women, yet the saying is ‘the balls’? Doesn’t sit right. I wanna see a man give birth.” I shudder at the thought.
“Anything I can even think to say is awkward,” Marcus decides.
“The boobies on that woman… you’re right. Now I sound like I’m objectifying her. Anyway, I’m glad she decided to stand up to your bullying.”
Marcus gives me a look now, like I’ve said something wrong. “I didn’t bully her. It is her job to give me what I want.”
“No, her job is to take a donut and stick it in the box, not redecorate them when a grumpy vampire comes in demanding ridiculous things,” I say.
“She stared me in the eyes,” Marcus says, like he’s shellshocked from this. Honestly, I kind of want to meet this brave woman. I really can’t fathom anyone looking Marcus in the eyes while “torturing” him the way she must have done.
“That’s a tough life,” I tease as I sit down with my donut and milk.
“I feel like you are unnecessarily amused about this while I’m over here considering whether I should write a review about her lack of services.”
I hesitate as something dawns on me. “Do you often write reviews?”
He’s silent for far too long, so I snatch up his phone and open it to Google where I can peruse his reviews. Oh god, this is going to be good.
First up we have Darwin’s Divine with a glorious one star.
Zero stars if I could. The food tasted like rotten cheese. The waiter then cried into my drink.
Up next is a shoe store with another unsurprising one star.
Irritating woman continually followed me around and asked if I needed anything. When I told her I needed her to take a long walk off a short pier, she started crying on the shoes I wanted. Zero stars.
Hold up… what the hell is this next one for?
This was advertised to clean all floor surfaces but still won’t get the blood off. Zero stars.
Why do I feel… joy from this? I shouldn’t enjoy how evil he is.
Marcus tries to snatch up the phone after a noise escapes my mouth, but I avoid him by leaning back farther than he can reach. It’s a confusing noise. One somewhere between horror and amusement.
“Oh my god, that’s awful that people just keep crying on the stuff you want. Do you… do you ever wonder if it’s you and not them?”
“They shouldn’t be incompetent,” he growls. “Give me the phone back.”
“Dear god, no, Marcus, I’m enjoying this far too much. Oh! Here, this looks like a positive one. ‘Five stars, the man didn’t look at or speak to me the entire time. Didn’t ask if I needed anything and didn’t acknowledge me. Very pleasant experience.’ Aw! How sweet. Was the cashier dead maybe?”
“Of course not.” There’s a moment of hesitation. “I mean… he never did move. Huh…” Marcus looks thoughtful before his eyebrows knit. “Oh well. Give me the phone back.”
“I can’t. It’s my phone now.”
“Give it here.”
“NO! No! You made another one cry! Marcus, why are you so evil?”
He makes a noise that could only convey his stubbornness. “They shouldn’t be so damn sensitive! It wasn’t like I made them cry on purpose.”
I raise an eyebrow and he glares at me.
“No donuts for you ever again,” he decides.
“Nah, you can’t withhold your love from me,” I remind him.
“I sure can,” he says as he picks up Hela who is ecstatic to be involved and has absolutely no idea that she’s being used as a threat. “Give me the phone or the rat gets it.”
“Gets what?”
“The rest of your donut,” he growls.
“Fine, fine,” I say, positive I’ll just find his reviews with my phone and share them to the group. They’ll love it and it’ll be a wonderful bonding experience for all of us.
Marcus’s eyes narrow. “You have a look on your face that I do not appreciate.”
“That’s just how my face looks.”
“It is not. You’re planning something and I’m positive it’s something I will not enjoy.”
“Nah, you’re gonna love it,” I tease.
“Your father wants us to come over tomorrow,” he says, clearly thinking a shift in the conversation will solve all problems.
“He’s talking to you instead of me now?” I ask. “You really are the son he always wished he had.”
“Don’t be dramatic or I can make you cry on your donut,” he threatens.
That makes me laugh because it’s a pretty good threat. “It’s like your superpower.”
“I guess.”
“Even being evil, I still love you,” I say.
“You better.” It sounds like a threat, but I still smile at him.
“So?”
“I love you too,” he says, clearly thinking I meant that.
“No, I’m meaning like… so what happened yesterday?”
“I think you were there at the same time, weren’t you? I’m pretty sure you know more than me,” he says, clearly playing dumb. Why he thinks I’ll just let it pass, I have no idea. Does he not know me extremely well at this point? I am nosy and I am curious, and I want to know what happened.
“So?” I ask.
He sighs and I realize I’m pretty lucky he can’t write a review about me. “Just… some people I met over a hundred years ago. Landall was just… annoying. And the woman who died, Isabella, was often seen with him.”
I lean back in my chair while wondering why he’s so reluctant to talk about them. Was it something that happened or something he did? He usually doesn’t ever appear guilty about things so maybe it’s something else?
Even so, I don’t want to press him because I feel like he’ll eventually tell me… at least, I believe so.
He’s quiet, and I can tell yesterday’s events are bothering him, but I don’t push.
I decide to shift the subject for now. “Anyway. There’s some kind of winter wonderland festival thing going on at the park this evening. Want to go? There might even be little kids you can make cry.”
“I like it when they’re adults better,” he says, which makes me laugh.
“Vicious… yet I weirdly love you ordering people around. It’s an odd combination.”
He seems pleased with that.