This was it. She pulled the auto-injector out of her pocket, holding it in her left hand as she removed the plastic cap with her teeth, feeling a ridiculous twinge of guilt when she let the cap fall to the ground. With the 9mm in her right hand and the auto-injector in her left, she steeled herself and stepped away from the house. There was no time for doubt, no room for hesitation. Feeling like there was a target on her forehead the whole time, she strode directly up behind the guard and shoved the auto-injector against his bare neck. He made a funny, whistling kind of a grunt, jerked once as if trying to straighten from his slouch, and then slumped forward.
Lana had considered what would happen once the guard woke from his drugged sleep. Would he remember someone hitting him from behind? Or would he simply assume he’d fallen asleep and be grateful that no one had noticed? She had no idea how long the effects of the morphine would last. But either way, she’d be trapped inside the shack with Vincent by then, and it would be far too late to change her plan. Hopefully, if the guard did raise an alarm, no one would think or even want to look inside the vampires’ prison.
All of these thoughts raced through her head as she hurried over to the shack and crouched down to get her first good look at the lock. Except that there wasn’t one. She wasted a full minute staring in disbelief, then scanned every inch of the door, looking for traps. When she didn’t find any, she realized it made sense. There was no need for a lock during the day because the vamps were asleep, and at night, even an ordinary vampire would be strong enough to rip the door off its hinges, so a lock would be useless. Add to that Fidelia Reyes’s claim that the narcos kept their pet vamp weak and well-trained, and he’d probably been so conditioned to obedience that he’d never considered trying to escape.
Vincent, on the other hand, was an entirely different category of vampire, as his captors were about to discover.
She opened the door slowly, worried about letting sunlight inside, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter. Vincent was at the far end of the shack—far being a relative term—lying beneath the largest of the shuttered windows. His height made him too long to stretch out completely, so he was resting on his side, rolled into an uncomfortable-looking fetal position. The other vampire was literally huddled in a corner, sitting with his legs bent and tucked against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees and his head resting on his arms. It looked even more uncomfortable than Vincent’s fetal curl.
Lana pulled the door quietly closed. It was hot and dusty inside the small building. Not an ounce of fresh air circulated and the floor was nothing but bare dirt. She couldn’t believe the other vamp had lived this way for who knew how many years. Lana knelt next to Vincent, her heart pounding, her lungs straining for air in the intense heat, sweat already beginning to soak her shirt beneath the jacket.
He was wearing the same bloody clothes he’d had on last night, and his hair was matted and sweaty. She brushed the heavy strands off his forehead and froze, thinking there was blood in his hair, but then realized his sweat itself was slightly pink. One of the side effects of consuming nothing but blood, apparently. He was breathing slowly, but easily, and considering the severity of his injuries last night, he looked damned good. She’d seen what the Reyes woman had done to him, seen the blood gushing out of his veins in a river of red. The wounds were still there on his neck, but they were healing already. If he’d fed properly, they might have been gone completely by now. She stroked her fingers gently over the dark pink scar tissue, then pulled her hand back, feeling abruptly uncomfortable. She and Vincent were friends, not lovers. She didn’t have the right to touch him like that.
Judging the distance to the door, she repositioned him slightly, so that his legs had more room. If anyone opened the door, she could always move him. But then, if anyone opened the door, they’d both be in a world of hurt.
Taking off her jacket, she removed the various pieces of gear from the pockets, setting them on the ground where she could get to them in a hurry. The jacket itself she folded and placed under Vincent’s head. He might not be aware of what was going on, but she couldn’t bear the sight of him lying in the dirt.
She touched him one more time—resting her hand on his chest, feeling the slow steady beat of his heart—then positioned herself between Vincent and the door and leaned back against the concrete wall with a sigh. Now that she was in here, she had hours with nothing to do but wait. She’d never planned on sneaking in this early. It was supposed to have been during the afternoon siesta, not right after breakfast. But the boss’s excursion into town had been an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. She looked around and saw nothing but dirt and block walls. And this was what the other vampire came “home” to every morning. Lana eyed him curiously. It was difficult to judge, with him curled into the corner like that, but he definitely seemed smaller than Vincent. Of course, Vincent was bigger than most men, vampire or not, so it probably wasn’t a fair comparison. This other vamp looked like he was about her height and weight, which made him slender for a man. And he looked young. Vampires all looked young, for the most part, but since their appearance reflected the age at which they were turned, there were definite variations. This guy didn’t look any older than eighteen or twenty.
And then there was the fact that he was huddled into a corner like a scared mouse instead of a vampire who could snap a man’s spine with ease. That alone told her more than she wanted to know about his life and how he was treated. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. After all, he’d set up Vincent to be captured and enslaved by the same people who tormented him daily. But the very fact that he had been tortured, even if only by his imprisonment in this box, made her question his guilt. Had he ever known anything else? Were vampires like ducks? Did they imprint on whatever parent figure found them first? And if that person was someone who would lock you in a dirty prison every day, did that shape who you became?
She wondered if any calculation of the other vamp’s guilt was going to matter to Vincent. He didn’t strike her as a forgiving kind of guy. Her warning to Fidelia Reyes hadn’t been said in jest. She had no doubt that Vincent would go after the woman just as soon as he’d dealt with his current captors, which would be in . . . she checked the time on her sports watch and nearly groaned out loud. She still had at least six hours to go before the sun went down. Six hours of sitting on a dirt floor in the stifling heat after a night of no sleep with nothing to do. She didn’t fool herself into believing she wouldn’t doze off. Maybe if it hadn’t been so hot, she could have managed. But between the heat, the boredom, and the lack of sleep . . . she had to assume logically that her eyes would close eventually.
Knowing this, she kept the 9mm with its silencer in her right hand. If someone opened the door unexpectedly, she wanted a quick, quiet reaction. She didn’t want to raise the entire compound because the sleeping guard outside woke up and got a bug up his ass to check the prisoners.
And then, as prepared as she figured she could be, she settled back against the wall next to Vincent and waited for sunset.
Chapter Ten
VINCENT WOKE WITH the perfect, instant memory of where he was and what had happened. He remained still, his eyes closed, breathing slowly. There were others nearby and he needed to know who they were before he gave himself away. It took only seconds to identify . . . Lana? What the fuck was she doing here? He’d warned her off as best as he could last night and had thought she’d acknowledged the warning. He’d seen her fade back into the crowd. Had they caught her anyway?
But even knowing it was Lana sitting closest to him, he didn’t move. There was another vampire here, someone he didn’t know. There was no reason he should personally be acquainted with every vampire in Mexico, although as Enrique’s lieutenant, he knew more than most. But this one . . . he drew the other vampire’s scent into his nostrils. Vincent didn’t know his physical age, but as a vampire, he was young, turned no more than a few years ago. And since he was locked in this crappy prison, he probably wasn’t all that powerful either.
Granted, Vincent was in the same crappy prison, and he was certainly powerful enough. But he’d been taken by trickery. And, besides, this prison wasn’t going to hold him for much longer.
He also knew that the other vamp hadn’t been taken by violence the way Vincent had, not recently anyway. The only strong scent of blood—other than Lana’s enticing and readily available supply—was the blood soaking Vincent’s clothes, and that was easily identifiable as his own.
So who was this guy? Enrique hadn’t created any new vampires that Vincent knew of, and he had spies close to Enrique who reported to him on just that sort of activity. So, was there a master in Enrique’s territory who was siring new vampires without the Mexican lord’s permission? And, if so, why would that master go to such lengths to take Vincent? The woman’s sneak attack in the bar—the soon-to-be-dead woman—would only work once, and anyone strong enough to be a master vampire would know that he couldn’t hold Vincent. Whoever had orchestrated the assault last night had wanted him taken alive. If they’d wanted him dead, they could have shot him, to much greater effect.
But Vincent was very much alive, and he had to wonder what the mastermind behind his capture was hoping to accomplish. Even weakened, Vincent was still a match for almost anyone in Mexico. Excepting Enrique, of course, although at full strength, Vincent was a match even for him. That parity in strength was part of why Vincent and Enrique didn’t get along. The Mexican lord wanted a powerful lieutenant, but not one who could best him in a challenge.
But Enrique wasn’t behind last night’s attack. If he’d wanted Vincent out of the picture, he’d have killed him directly—or at least tried. There was nothing about this situation that made sense. But of all those senseless things, the only one that truly worried him was the fact that Lana was imprisoned next to him.
He opened his eyes. What a dump. Block walls and a dirt floor. He glanced around, moving only his eyes. Shutters with nothing behind them but the last gasp of daylight. The sun was already below the horizon or Vincent wouldn’t be awake. The little bit of light left was simply the gleam of sunlight over the curve of the earth. For most vampires, even that remnant of sunlight would have kept them asleep, but the more powerful vampires, like Vincent, could rise as soon as the sun itself dipped below the horizon. He still couldn’t walk into that light, but it didn’t keep him down either.
Those shutters, on the other hand, told a different story. They were designed to torture vampires. He’d seen something like it once, but it was so long ago that he couldn’t bring the memory into focus. He would have, with a little concentration, but there were more important things to worry about right now.
Lana was sitting between him and the door, her head against the wall, her eyes closed, but with gun in hand. Her arms were bare and he realized he was lying on her jacket. He smiled. She was guarding him and she’d given him her jacket as a pillow. She cared. He’d known he would win her over eventually. Although he could think of a hundred better ways to do it.
The other vampire was squeezed into the opposite corner as if to make himself as small a target as possible, and Vincent experienced a surge of raw anger at the way the vamp had been treated.
“Vincent?” Lana’s whisper was so soft he barely heard it. But he shifted his gaze to her, then reached up and squeezed her arm in a careful warning. She slid down from her sitting position until they were lying face to face, their mouths close enough to kiss. She cupped his jaw carefully, her thumb moving back and forth over his beard. “Are you okay?” she asked.
Vincent fought against the urge to rub against her hand like a cat. “I’m getting there,” he told her. “Tell me what happened.”
“That bitch—”
“I know that part, querida. What happened after?”