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Night's Caress
by Mary Hughes
 
Copyright © 2017 by Mary Hughes. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

Floodlights snapped on, carving the alley’s secrets from the black night. Scurrying rodents, pooled filth—and a corpse, lying on the cold concrete, skin glowing almost white in the lights’ harsh glare.

FBI special agent Seb Rikare knelt beside the victim and touched one forensic-gloved hand to the body’s neck. No heartbeat, no rush of blood through veins. Still, he made a show of checking for a pulse. There were customs to be observed, after all. The humans from the police crime scene unit would expect it.

Two techs bustled behind him, taking pictures. They’d also dust for prints—and come up empty. The reason gaped, ugly and ragged, on the blue-white skin beside his fingers’ light dents.

Twin puncture wounds.

Seb withdrew his hand. Half healed, bruising around them indicating suction. Body drained of blood. Though this was the first such killing in New York City, it was the seventh in the nation. He’d seen the reports. Seen, too, that the murders stitched a line eastward. Coming here.

He’d murmured a suggestion in local law enforcement ears, in case the worst should happen. Call the FBI for an assist. His precaution paid off.

Clutched in the corpse’s hand was the damning tourism pamphlet.

Come to Meiers Corners. That small detail spelled big trouble.

A sharp-creased navy pant leg appeared next to where Seb crouched. A male said, “Done by one of ours?”

“Looks that way.”

“My master won’t be pleased.”

“Your master better not find out, Klaus. Or we’ll have bigger problems.” Peeling off his gloves with precise snaps, Seb rose to his full height beside a model-perfect blond male, his six-foot-nine frame towering over model-boy’s mere six-two.

“That’s not my call to make. I am but a lowly attaché.” The blond cast down modest eyes, seemingly humble, but the hint of a smug smile told a different story. “Lorenzo needs to know if there is a foreigner in his territory, hunting huma—”

“With this serial killer, things aren’t quite so simple,” Seb said, cutting Klaus off before he could blurt “hunting humans.” Seb motioned to the techs to give them privacy. The two nodded and left the alley.

When Seb was sure no one was within hearing range, he turned a dark glare on the other male. Male, not man, because they were no longer strictly Homo sapiens. “Talking vampire business before mortals is careless.”

Seb’s kind was powerful, but even thousands of superhuman monsters didn’t stand a chance against seven billion humans armed with nukes and fear.

Model-boy gave a negligent shrug. “You can just hypnotize them into forgetting.”

Seb upped his glare with a growl. “The mind is a tricky thing. I prefer not to tamper if I don’t have to.”

Klaus only tsked. “You’re a bit soft on them, aren’t you?”

“And you discount them too easily.”

The other male shrugged. “Well, this is Cadre territory. I have no choice but to tell Lorenzo. If there is a blood-crazed youngling here, my master must know.”

The New York Cadre organized area vampires like a crime syndicate, but instead of racketeering and prostitution, the vampires traded in power and blood. Lorenzo was its head, and Klaus, despite his youth, was a top lieutenant, connected with the city’s police and government.

Seb wasn’t Cadre—he owed no vampire his allegiance. “You must keep this secret from him, Klaus. I insist.”

“Why?” He glanced at the body, real puzzlement in his eyes. “Why such secrecy over a youngling’s unfortunate indiscretion?”

“Indiscretion? For shit’s sake, Klaus, a man’s been murdered.”

“A single dead human? It doesn’t endanger our kind with exposure, and our patrols will find the youngling soon enough. We’ll bring him into the fold. Teach him manners. Just make this impediment go away—”

“This isn’t an impediment, it’s a victim.” Seb’s temples throbbed. “And your carelessness has made you blind. No thirsty, frenzied youngling in the grip of bloodlust would have the control to plant that.” He jabbed a finger at the trifold clutched in the victim’s hand.

A pair of faint frown lines appeared between the blond’s brows. “A tourist brochure? It is the dead man’s. Tourists are common enough in New York.”

“That’s not a tourist, not according to his Brooklyn driver’s license. Klaus, there have been six other murders exactly like this.”

“Exsanguination?”

“With obvious fang marks, partially healed, so they’re not fake. If anyone guesses vampire—”

“This is why you joined the FBI, isn’t it? To erase our kind’s tracks?”

“Yeah, I took care of it.” Seb growled. He’d changed the electronic records to stab wounds, vic bled out, even though it rubbed him the wrong way to go against the Bureau’s tenets.

But if vampires were vulnerable to disorganized mobs, they really couldn’t withstand professional law enforcement hunting them.

As long as they could pass as humans, they were safe. If mortals penetrated the masquerade—the term describing vampires disguised as ordinary people, hiding among them in plain sight—worldwide bloodshed would erupt. Seb’s ideals wouldn’t mean squat. And, hell, in this case, knowing the real details would only have set law enforcement on the wrong trail.

“So, then.” Klaus shrugged. “All’s well that ends well, eh?”

“Except it’s just started. Take a look at this.” He snared a fresh glove from his pocket and used it to work the tourist pamphlet from the vic’s tight fist.

“Meiers Corners?”

“A deliberate trail of bread crumbs to Cadre territory from the Iowa Alliance.”

Klaus’s face paled. “An Alliance vampire, hunting in my master’s territory? It would spark a war.”

“It certainly spells trouble.” Actually, it spelled e-x-t-i-n-c-t-i-o-n if those two powerhouses clashed. “That’s why I told you to say nothing to your master.”

The blond dug a clawed hand through his hair then winced. “I can double patrols to try to find the beast, but I can’t keep this news from Lorenzo forever. And when he finds out… Fuck, my master hates the Alliance.”

“He and their leader have a past,” Seb noted dryly.

“Lorenzo will attack Meiers Corners first and ask questions later, which will spark reprisals from the Alliance, which will light a fuse of vampire death from Iowa to New York.”

“Vampires and humans.” Seb’s anger kindled at Klaus’s all-too-typical point of view, considering ephemerals as blood sheep or less. “The real cost will be all the innocent lives caught in the crossfire.” He snarled it, his sight bleeding red with temper.

Klaus stiffened. “My lord. I apologize. What do we do?”

Seb took bleak satisfaction that he’d finally gotten past the blond’s mountainous ego and into the same area code as his brain. “You liaise with the officials here. The local police are among the best in the world. Let them work the crime scene. If there’s any clue to the murderer’s whereabouts, they will find it. Step up Cadre patrols, in case I’m wrong and it’s simply a stray vampire. Between the two, if the killer can be found here in New York, he will be found.”

“And this man?” Klaus gestured toward the body.

“Watch him. It’s extremely unlikely that he will rise, but best not to take chances.”

“The usual three days’ watch?”

“That’s just tradition. If he’s really dead, you’ll smell decay sooner than that. If not, watch him closely the evening of the third day.”

“I will do so. Where are you going, my lord?”

“Tracking a blood-starved youngling is one thing. Digging out a clever vampire who’s hiding is quite another. We need more information, and I’m going to the source—Meiers Corners.”