The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance (Trisha Telep) (Kitty Norville 0.50)

I’d taken enough self-defence classes to ward this monster off, but that was all I could do, considering the guy was impervious to injury.

My best bet was getting to the door. He knew that, which is why he stayed between it and me. Finally, he got tired of the dance and pounced. I waited until the last second, then spun out of the way. When he tried to check his charge and lost his balance, I grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into a wooden crate. I did it again and again, until the wood cracked and split. Still he kept fighting.

I tried backing towards the door, but he grabbed my dress, holding me still. I was about to lunge, praying that the dress would rip, when the door flew open and a voice said, “I’ll take that for you.”

Aaron grabbed the vampire. I didn’t wait to see what he did with him. I raced outside to check on Tiffany and Carter.

They were fine. Sedated, as it turned out. That’s what a vampire’s first bite does, as Cassandra explained while Aaron stashed their prisoner in a safe place. Aaron had bitten Tiffany just enough to put her to sleep, then Cassandra did the same for Carter. They’d wake up soon.

When Aaron returned, he filled me in on the rest as Cassandra waited impatiently.

Tiffany had been right about bars like this being the perfect way to “hide in plain sight” for vampires - at least for one who preferred leaving his dinner pulse free. This guy had apparently hit two other similar bars, the first in New Mexico, where Agent Carter presumably got involved. Aaron and Cassandra had caught up at the second bar. They hadn’t seen their quarry, who was a new vampire, but they had seen Carter - both there and here - and presumed he was their killer.

One thing they did know about their target was that he had very specific taste in women.

“That’s why you brought Tiffany out here,” I said. “As bait.”

“No, she wasn’t the bait,” Aaron said. “You were.”

Great. I’m finally some guy’s “type” . . . and he turns out to be a killer vampire. That’s why Aaron lured Tiffany out, he explained. If I got worried and followed, so would the killer. And if I stayed inside, I’d be alone, giving him a chance to make his move.

“He’ll be dealt with,” Aaron said. “In the meantime, thank you. And Cassandra apologizes for startling you earlier and not explaining the situation before you took off.”

Cassandra’s perfect brows arched. “I do?”

“You do,” he said. “Deep down, you’re very apologetic.”

She rolled her eyes and waved for him to wrap this up so they could be on their way. From the look and smile he gave her, I knew there was no use mooning over this vampire. He was taken, and probably had been for longer than I’d been alive. I wasn’t too disappointed. Here was proof that really hot guys sometimes do go for bitchy women. So there was hope for m

e yet. Just not with this particular hot guy.

As a back-up, though, Agent Carter would do nicely. Very nicely, I decided as I sat in the back of the ambulance with him. He was still groggy, holding his glasses in one hand, his hair and shirt rumpled, looking very sexy, even if he probably felt like he’d been hit with a two-by-four.

He’d confirmed what I’d figured out — that he’d been following the case of a cross-country killer, starting in New Mexico. Just as Aaron had noticed Carter in the last bar, Carter had spotted Aaron, and jumped to the same wrong conclusion - that the other must be the killer. Neither had noticed the relatively nondescript man who turned out to be the real culprit.

I couldn’t tell Carter - apparently human - what really happened. But since he hadn’t seen who’d assaulted him it was easy. When asked about his attacker, I described the real killer instead, knowing others in the bar could confirm his presence and disappearance. Earlier, when Tiffany had woken, I’d told her to do the same - say she had gone into the alley with the blond guy, then headed back in alone and been waylaid by the other man.

As for the unconscious guy in the alley? Carter suspected he really had been a bit of performance art, though the manager of Vamp Tramp had refused to confirm that.

In all this, though, no one mentioned the possibility that a real vampire was involved. To Carter, the explanation was obvious.

“It’s some maniac who thinks he’s a vampire or wants us to. He injects his victims with a sedative, then bleeds them to death. As for what he does with the blood, I don’t really want to know. There are a lot of sick people out there.”

“And now he got away. So what will you do?”

“Stick around the local office for a while, see if he tries again. And, in the meantime—” he gave me his lopsided smile “—I believe I owe you a drink. Are you free tomorrow? I’ll throw in dinner. Least I can do after all this.” When I didn’t answer, the smile faded. “No?”

I met his gaze. “Does the phrase ‘interracial council’ mean anything to you?”

He frowned. “No, should it?”

“Cabal? Exaudio? Vodoun?”

“Is that Latin?”

His confusion convinced me. Agent Miguel Carter was, without a doubt, one hundred per cent human.

I smiled. “Pick me up at seven?”