Kinda Like Van Helsing (Afterlife Book 4) Read online

  "What about her partner?" Brittney asked.

  "He was the one who got her pregnant," Ryan said darkly. "They're both on paid leave."

  Harper and Brittney both nodded. "What time tonight are we doing the trade?" Brittney asked. "Its' just that Agent Hawthorne and I have, uh, dinner plans."

  Ryan stared at her for a moment, shook his head, and rifled through some papers on his desk. "You'll be taking an armored car there at about three in the morning. You're meeting out on Milano Road. Nobody uses it; it's blocked off for construction at the moment."

  "If it's blocked off for construction--"

  "--The construction crew are our men," Ryan said. "They blocked off the road intentionally so we could use it for the operation tonight. Ladies, if you can do this, you're going to win over their trust. They're going to want to continue to do business with you, and they're going to let you deeper into their organization. That's what we want. Taking out Trinity's top man means a lot to us here at the station. We've been cleaning up his messes for years."

  "We can do it," Harper said.

  "That's what I wanted to hear," Ryan said. "I'll let you two get to dinner, and then you'll check in here later, about midnight. I'll be here, so I'll be the one to prep you."

  "Thanks," Harper said. "Come on, Agent Conley. Let's go prepare ourselves. It's going to be an interesting night."

  FIVE

  Alec sat with his head in his hands, thinking. Chloe was still getting food, Sarah had gone to lay down in his guest room, and Conner was out for an evening run. Neither Brittney nor Harper had were back yet, which left him all alone. Despite his tendency to push people away, Alec hated being alone. It gave him too much time to think, and tonight he was thinking about blood.

  The people he'd killed over the last century danced before his eyes like puppets in a play. He could remember each one perfectly, the way they smelled and the way they tasted. He thought he'd gotten control over himself, that he'd become a good guy, that he wouldn't have to think of these things anymore. Than the demon, Trentreen, had forced him to drink human blood, and he'd returned right back to where he started.

  He was trying to hide it from the rest of the crew. He knew they would feel sorry for him and he didn't want their pity. He'd done it to himself; he'd been the one who'd killed all of those people, and God, how many there were! He thought of his first -- a young woman named Janet. She'd been walking home when he'd appeared in front of her. He'd been able to manipulate her so easily! She'd invited him to her house and he'd taken her up on the offer.

  The rest, he didn't want to think about. He kept seeing her face, so young and so innocent, so trusting, so... no. He wouldn't think about it. With great effort, he pushed Janet out of his mind.

  Alec went to the mini fridge and opened it. It was empty. Not even a soda. He hoped Chloe would be back soon and he could restock both the mini fridge and his apartment. He knew how much Chloe disliked being sent on store runs, but she was the only one he trusted with it. He should have told her that; it would make her feel better about being constantly asked to go. But Alec wasn't the sort that shared things like that.

  Suddenly, the door to the back room burst open and Conner swept in, slamming it behind him. He locked the door, and turned to Alec. "Someone shot at me."

  "What?" Alec asked, immediately on high alert. "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah" Conner said. "I was out for my run, which you know, and all of a sudden, I hear gunshots. I heard one whiz this close from my face." He held up his forefinger and thumb about an inch apart.

  Alec frowned. "Who would be shooting at you, Conner? Are you sure it wasn't a car backfiring or something like that?"

  Conner growled and turned into an incubus. He stood in front of Alec with his tattoos glowing, and his teeth bared. He yanked his shirt up, and pointed to a spot on his lower abdomen. There was a bullet hole there, and it was oozing green blood. "Does that look like something a car backfiring would do?"

  Alec studied the wound for a moment. He knew it wasn't life threatening; incubi were extremely resilient. If you wanted to kill one with a bullet, you aimed for the head.

  "I see," he said. "It's extremely risky for someone to shoot at you in broad daylight, in front of the club you own. Who do you think it was?"

  "I don't know," Conner said. He shimmered and then returned to normal. He placed a hand over the wound, and then pulled it back to observe. There were trace amounts of blood on his fingertips, but it wasn't gushing. If it had been, Alec would have gone to wake up Sarah. Her skills in first-aid were the best.

  "If it was a demon," Alec said, "I don't see why they wouldn't just attack you straight on. They don't usually carry guns."

  "We do," Conner pointed out. "Maybe they're finally taking a leaf out of our book and going the more pedestrian route of trying to kill us."

  "If that's the case, we need to have constant vigilance," Alec said. "Until we can determine who might be trying to kill you, I don't want you going out anywhere alone. Or Sarah, for that matter. She says it was a car accident she was in, but if someone is trying to off you, they might be after her as well."

  Conner frowned. "If they're after me and Sarah, that leaves it open to debate if they're after the rest of us as well."

  "I haven't had been attacked," Alec pointed out.

  "Well, you wouldn't have," Conner said. "You don't leave this room during the day. You're only out at night. Maybe they only attack in daylight hours."

  Alec considered and nodded. "That could be," he said. "Let's do some research on which demons only attack during the day. In the mean time, text Chloe. Make sure she's alright and that nobody is hitting her with a car or trying to shoot at her as she leaves the grocery store."

  "No need," Chloe said. She had unlocked and pushed into the room, balancing multiple bags of groceries in her arms. Alec and Conner quickly got up to help her. "So what, you think Sarah's car crash wasn't accidental?"

  "I got shot at," Conner said.

  Chloe frowned. "Are you alright?"

  Conner nodded. Then he noticed an envelope sticking out of Chloe's purse.

  "What's that?"

  Chloe shook her head.

  "Is it another love note?" Conner asked.

  Chloe sighed. "I know you think it's funny, but it's starting to get a bit weird. This one was stuck in the door of my car. So whomever is obsessing over me knows what car I drive. They probably know where I live, too. Maybe I should move. Oh, I don't know."

  Alec shook his head. "No need to go that far, Chloe. It's just someone with a crush, that's all. It's just some boy who comes to Afterlife that wants in your pants."

  "Well he's not getting in them this way," Chloe snapped.

  Alec had to bite back the laugh that rose to his lips. He glanced over at Conner and saw he was doing the same. Before he infuriated Chloe even more, he turned away and began up the stairs to his apartment with some bags in hand. Conner followed him up. Chloe plopped down in a chair and let them handle it.

  When they got up to the apartment, Alec saw that Sarah was awake.

  "Hey, how you feeling?" he asked.

  "It hurts," Sarah admitted. She touched her neck brace.

  "Well," Conner said. "We're now thinking that whomever hit your car was trying to kill you, and possibly Chloe. I just got shot at."

  Sarah blinked. "Are you alright?"

  "I'm fine," Conner said.

  Sarah peered at him searchingly. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," Conner said.

  Alec shook his head. "He's tougher than he lets on, Sarah. Now if it had been his car that got shot..."

  "Heads would be rolling," Conner grunted.

  Alec began putting away his groceries. As he did, he realized that he'd put a lot of Harper's favorite foods on his grocery list. He stared at a jar of peanut butter. The truth was, he didn't like that she was moving out. He'd been somewhat annoyed when she'd first moved in because he liked his privacy, but he'd gotten used to her company over
the last few months. He was going to miss making her coffee in the morning or an omelet for lunch.

  He knew that if he really wanted her to stay, he could have asked her to. He knew how she felt about him. She'd gone so far as to ask to be turned into a vampire, like him, so they could truly be together. Of course, he would never do that to her. He'd never put her through the same suffering that he'd gone through.

  Besides, she thought he was still in love with her great-grandmother. He would always love Ileana, but he'd let go of her a long time ago. He didn't know how to explain that to Harper, or how to explain that he liked her for who she was, not where she came from.

  He finished putting away his groceries, telling himself not to dwell on it. It did little good. Once he was finished, he approached Sarah again.

  "Did you see who was driving the car that hit you?"

  Sarah shook her head. "I didn't get the chance. I passed out after he hit the car, and by the time I woke up, he was gone."

  "It was a hit and run," Conner said. "Even more likely that it was an intentional crash."

  "Great," Sarah said. "As if we don't have enough problems with the police and the goblins... now we have to add in someone trying to kill us."

  "Maybe not us," Alec said. "Maybe just you and Conner. Though, Chloe was in the car with you. Could they have been after her too?"

  "I don't know," Sarah said. "I mean, they came right at my side instead of taking us head on, or from the back. It could be that they were after me alone. Maybe someone who's angry that I killed those two loan sharks."

  "Yeah, but why go after me?" Conner asked. "I wasn't involved in that. I mean, I could see if it was Harper or Brittney. Both of them were there at the scene of the crime. But me? No, I wasn't connected at all. I think it's more likely that someone's coming after all of us."

  Sarah shrugged, winced, and sat back down on the couch. "I'm not going to be able to come with you tonight, Alec. I know I said I would, but you were right. I'm in too much pain even from just moving around up here. I'll keep my phone on, though, just in case there's an emergency. Is it alright if I stay over tonight? I don't feel like going home, knowing that someone is after me."

  Alec sighed. He used to hate people in his home, but he was slowly getting used to it. After their last case, everyone had come up, and they'd camped out on the floor, staying up most of the night talking. It reminded him of sleepovers from when he was a child. Except they weren't children anymore.

  "It's fine," he finally said. "Best you stay here anyway, so we can keep an eye on you after that crash."

  Sarah nodded. "Thank you."

  "No problem," Alec said, then motioned to Conner. "Let's go downstairs and wait for the girls."

  Conner nodded and followed Alec down into the back room again. Chloe was drinking a soda and working on some sort of drawing. Alec glanced at it, stopped, and looked again. It was a rough, black and white sketch of the crew. He and Conner were on the ground, Sarah was a fury, and Brittney, Chloe, and Harper were standing back as Sarah confronted a beautiful woman wearing an intricate mask.

  "Wow," he said with a low whistle. "I didn't realize you could draw, Chloe."

  "You never asked," she said.

  "That's fantastic," he said. "Do you have any others?"

  Chloe seemed to brighten up at the question. She flipped back a few pages in the sketchbook and showed him a picture of Harper after throwing Ileana's Nexus onto the ground. She had managed to capture the longing for power that Harper had felt at the time, and the realization that she couldn't keep it.

  She flipped through a few more pages, and Alec couldn't help but notice how many pictures of Brittney there were. He put a hand out to stop her, flipped back a page, and looked at one of the Brittney portraits. She was laughing, red hair streaming out behind her, eyes twinkling, and fingers clasped around a soda can.

  "These are beautiful," he said.

  "Thank you," Chloe said. "It's what I do to relax. My mother, before she died, was a great artist. So when I'm sketching, I think about her. It makes me feel closer to her somehow."

  Alec squeezed her shoulder briefly and then went to his usual seat, stretching back in the chair. "Did you know she could do that, Conner?"

  Conner glanced briefly at Chloe's work and then shrugged. "Yeah. She showed them to me awhile ago."

  Alec frowned. "Have you shown anyone else?"

  "Well, yeah," Chloe said. "Everyone else was interested. I showed them off a couple weeks ago, but you were too busy moping and sulking around, so I didn't bother you with them."

  "Right," Alec said.

  He decided not to comment on her statement. If he did, it would probably come out snarky, and he was trying to learn to control his temper for the people who didn't deserve to be snapped at. Over the last week, he thought he'd done a decent job of engaging in conversation without acting like an ass. He still had a long way to go, though.

  Before he could say more, the door opened and Brittney and Harper stepped inside. They were still dressed in their suits, FBI badges hanging around their necks. Both of them looked flustered and a tad upset.

  "What's happened?" Alec said. "Did someone try to hurt you?"

  Harper blinked at Alec. "No. Why would they?"

  Alec quickly let them in on what had happened to Sarah and Conner.

  "Great," Brittney said. "Just what we need. Okay, Harper, tonight we'll have to be even more careful than we already talked about."

  Harper nodded.

  "Tonight?" Alec said with raised eyebrows. "Tonight, we're going into the sewers. We've discovered that it's been goblins taking art from various museums throughout Vegas. We're going to go after them. Which means you two should probably get some rest, because it's going to be a long night. I can make us dinner first, then you two can crash, and then we'll--"

  "No can do," Brittney said, shooting Conner a dark look. "We have a case tonight to work on."

  "What?"

  "Someone impressed Eklund so much that when one of the detectives called in to check our caseload, he told him we were the best agents he had and we'd have time to help them."

  Conner shrugged. "Well that's a good thing, right? I mean, you don't want them to think you're new in the field."

  "No," Harper said. "It is definitely not a good thing. Detective Moore decided we would be the best people to go undercover for an arms deal. We're supposed to pick up a shipment of drugs in exchange. And that's just the start. They want us to infiltrate this gang... Trinity, wasn't it?"

  Brittney nodded.

  "No way," Alec said. "I know Trinity. They're bad news. They don't mind killing people who step on their toes wrong. There's no way the two of you can pull off an undercover job with no formal training. They'll kill you. You're going to have to tell this Moore fellow that you've got something that came up tonight and that you'll need him to send other officers."

  "Right," Brittney said. "And how will that look on our faked resumes?"

  "Who cares?"

  "I care," Brittney said. "We use our police contacts frequently. If they can't trust us to do jobs with them, they're certainly not going to trust us with other sensitive information in the future."

  Alec let out a low curse.

  "It's alright," Conner said. "You know what, Alec? Let's do goblins another night. It's not like someone's life is in danger. They're just stealing art. We'll go with Brittney and Harper tonight. We can be their bodyguards."

  "You'd do that for us?" Harper asked.

  "Of course," Conner said.

  "Wait, what will I do?" Chloe asked. "I want to be involved."

  "You've got your FBI badge still, right?" Harper asked.

  Chloe nodded. "Yeah, but it's not official like yours and Brittney's. If they check the credentials on it and it's anyone other than Eklund, they're going to find out it's a fake. Then the police are going to think you're working with criminals."

  "It's better if you stay home tonight, anyway," Alec said. "Keep an e
ye on Sarah."

  "Fine," Chloe said.

  He didn't like the idea, not at all, but he recognized the truth in what Brittney was saying. If they were going to continue to use their fake FBI credentials, they were going to have to deal with the fallout from that, and that meant occasionally having to do real police work.

  "Fine," he said. "That's fine. What time are we meeting them?"

  "We're meeting Moore at midnight," Harper said. "So, is that offer for dinner still open? I'm starving. Brittney probably is too."

  "I am," Brittney confirmed.

  "Come on then," Alec said. "Let's go up to the apartment."

  The five of them went upstairs and joined Sarah. Alec went to the kitchen and began preparing the meal. Conner went into help him.

  "Two men that can cook," Brittney said. "I think I'm in heaven."

  "I can cook too," Chloe said.

  "You can?"

  Chloe nodded. "I mean, not well... but I can cook. If you want like, Raman, or something. I mean, I can put egg in it..."

  Brittney laughed, and Chloe joined in.

  "That's alright," Brittney said. "You can come over and cook Raman with egg for me anytime. Once Harper and I get our new dishes in, that is. We have to meet the movers tomorrow so we can direct them on where to put our stuff."

  "Still can't believe the two of you are moving in together," Chloe said. "It's going to be great! We can have giant slumber parties, do our nails..."

  "How old are you again?" Harper asked.

  Both Brittany and Chloe burst into laughter. Harper shook her head and joined Sarah on the couch.

  "How are you feeling? I heard what happened. Your poor car."

  "I'll be alright," Sarah said. "It's not as bad as when you got shot, thank God. I just pulled all the muscles in my neck. That's what the brace is for. They said I'd be able to take it off in a few days. Then I have to go light on exercise for another week."

  "Oh no," Chloe teased. "What if you get terribly out of shape in that time? I mean, a week off? How will you ever survive?"

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  Alec listened to the conversation with a half an ear as he prepared a meatloaf to go in the oven. Beside him, Conner was chopping up potatoes to boil. Normally, Alec liked to cook alone, but he did have to admit that it was nice having someone else in the apartment who didn't mind helping out.