How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,118
descend the stairs, into the lit basement. I can smell Finn down here, but the smell isn’t thick enough to tell me if he’s still here. When I see his gun sitting on a counter, I rush over to it, knowing the bullets inside might be the only thing we have to slow the monster down. I grab the gun and hold it out to Karsyn.
“You’re a better shot than me. The bullets inside the weapon were stolen from the evidence room. They’re the same bullets you got shot with.”
“How is he so much smarter than you?” Karsyn asks as he takes the gun before switching the safety off.
We move deeper into the room and over to a door with a keypad on it. I have no idea what the code might be, but the door is human proof, not vampire. Watson was clearly only concerned about keeping humans in or out, so when I kick the door, it cracks and swings free.
I step into the room filled with medical equipment and wonder if this is where he’s been taking the victims. Is this where they die before he leaves them for us to find? Puts them on display in an attempt to scare Finn into listening to him?
“The noise is coming from this room,” Claude says as he rushes past another open door to the last one. He kicks the door, but it only dents it. This door is much more secure, but it’s still meant for a human, not a vampire.
Could Finn be here? If Finn’s inside, I could grab him, and we could run. We now know who it is. We could have the entire police force looking for him and protecting Finn. I just have to get Finn free.
I rush up and together, we kick the door in as Karsyn keeps a close eye on the open doorway.
The door breaks and swings open, revealing a body lying on the ground, but it only takes a moment for me to realize it’s Charlie. She’s bound and gagged in the corner, only able to roll this way and that. She must have been kicking the wall, which alerted us.
Claude is on her first, but he needs my help breaking the binds meant for a vampire. Charlie claws at the gag before pulling it free. “He’s got Finn. I heard him throw him into the room next door and about ten minutes ago he came back for him.”
“Do you know where he might be?” I ask.
“I don’t know… but I have an idea how to find out,” she says as she struggles to get to her feet. It’s clear she’s been without blood for too long. Her skin is horribly pale and her eyes are dull. Claude hooks an arm around her and helps steady her. “We have to be fast. He has the vampires he created at his every beck and call and he might be sending them here.”
“How’d you figure it out?” I ask.
“Help me to the computer.” As Claude does so, she keeps talking. “He was acting weird and I thought something was up. He was obsessively going down here every day which seemed odd. So one day, I managed to get through the locked basement door and came down here where I found his computer. I realized that he’d been following and documenting locations for years. It was very strange,” she says. “And that’s when I realized what it was… he was following Finn. He was manipulating his prostheses. That’s how he was even able to make them stop working to ensure Finn came in to see him.”
She sits down at the computer and turns it on.
“He doesn’t know I saw what I did at the computer, but he caught me down here. He probably hasn’t thought to shut the GPS trackers off yet. We can find him. I promise.”
I just hope she’s right.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
FINN
I’ve been unable to ask about Orin since Watson came back for me. When he’d opened that door, covered in blood, I knew that Orin wasn’t all right. Watson was pissed and short with me as he yanked me out of that room and dragged me up to his car before we left.
And I don’t know what to do as he drives, not saying a word. He’s angry right now, so I don’t want to infuriate him further when it’s clear he’s unstable, so I sit quietly as the car speeds down the highway and think.