Vamps and the City

CHAPTER 17

Darcy's legs gave out. She plopped onto her rear, still staring at the photo on the coffee table.

"Are ye all right, lass?" Connor stood.

She shook her head, still staring at the photo. Adam.

Shanna leaned forward. "Are you involved with him?"

"I–I don't even know his real name." Darcy lowered her head into her hands.

"You are involved with him," Shanna whispered.

Why bother to deny it? One look at his picture, and she'd collapsed on the floor. Darcy raised her head and gazed at Adam's photo. No, not Adam. Her chest contracted, squeezing the air from her lungs and crushing her heart. She'd spent so much time thinking about Adam when he wasn't Adam.

Longing for Adam when he wasn't Adam. He'd been the first thought in her mind when she awoke, her last thought when she fell into her death sleep. And her thoughts had always centered on the futile hope that somehow, in spite of all her fears and doubts, he could still love her and they could be together.

It was all a lie. A useless, hopeless dream that turned to dust in the light of the truth, just like she would in the sun. Adam was gone. No, Adam had never existed. But her dream had been real. And it nearly killed her to lose it. The loss tore at her heart, then slowly twisted into something more sinister.

Betrayal.

He'd lied to her. Hell, he probably didn't care about her at all. He was simply working undercover.

Now his conversation with Lady Pamela made sense. He'd talked about the different lengths of nighttime because he knew he was talking to a vampire. He'd wanted the judges to think he was a vampire. He was fooling them, fooling her. And his remark about being an international spy? Lady Pamela had laughed at his silliness, but he was the one laughing at them all.

"Oh my God," Darcy gasped. She looked at Shanna in horror. "I told him about your wedding. It was my fault. Oh, no." She covered her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

Shanna's eyes widened. "What did you say?"

"He asked me to go out that Saturday, and I said I had a wedding to go to. I mentioned your names, but that was all."

Connor nodded. "That's how Sean Whelan knew the date of the wedding."

"I didn't say where," Darcy assured them. But now, she remembered how Adam had pressed her for more information. He'd wanted to know where Shanna was taking her honeymoon.

"It's all right." Shanna smiled. "We still had our wedding."

Darcy gritted her teeth. "It's not all right." Anger flared inside her, but it wasn't hot. She'd thought she was cold the last four years, but it was nothing compared to the icy rage that shuddered through her now. Adam had used her, and she'd been so desperate for warmth and attention, she'd fallen for him. She'd come close to destroying Shanna's wedding because of him. Damn him for treating her like a pathetic, lonely woman.

She motioned toward the plastic DVD case. "What is that?"

"Surveillance on Austin Erickson." Connor opened the case and removed the disk. "We've been studying the Stake-Out team. We plan to visit them all on the same night and erase their memories."

Connor inserted the DVD into Shanna's recorder and turned on the TV. "I did surveillance on

Erickson to get an idea of his schedule. We doona want to miss him on the appointed night."

Darcy slowly stood. On the TV screen, she saw a dimly-lit garage. Someone parked a dark sedan and climbed out. Adam. No, make that Austin. No, make that Lying Scumbag. He walked toward an elevator. The screen went black momentarily, then showed the living room of an apartment. Austin was inside, moving about.

"I levitated to the fourth floor and shot this through the window," Connor said.

"I hope no one noticed you hanging around in midair," Shanna commented dryly.

The corner of the Scotsman's mouth quirked. "I wasna seen." His smile faded as he regarded Darcy.

"This Erickson is a dangerous one. We've never seen a mortal with that much psychic power."

Shanna's eyes widened. "More than me?"

"Ye're strong," Connor conceded. "But ye havena been trained for it." He motioned to Austin on the screen. "This man has."

Darcy clenched her hands. They felt brittle and cold enough to crack like a sheet of ice. "What kind of psychic power? Does he control people?" Had he manipulated her mind to make her fall for him?

No, that couldn't be right. Her feelings involved more than her brain. And he couldn't have manipulated her heart.

"I'm no' certain how much he can do," Connor replied. "But surely ye would have noticed if he tried to read yer mind."

"Right." Darcy exhaled with relief. She could always tell when someone tried to enter her mind. "I would have felt cold."

Shanna winced. "It doesn't work that way for a mortal. When my father tried to read my mind, it was very warm."

"Aye. 'Tis cold as death from a Vamp, but hot from a mortal," Connor agreed.

Hot? Darcy sank into a wingback chair. Good God. All those times she'd flushed with heat, she'd attributed it to attraction, even lust. And all along, it had been him, invading her mind. Without her knowledge and against her will.

Connor's eyes narrowed. "He has read yer mind, hasn't he?"

That manipulating bastard. Her eye twitched. "I–I don't think he learned anything valuable from me."

"Probably not." Connor crossed his arms. "They never knew where the wedding was to take place."

Darcy nodded. All Austin could have learned from her was her most private fears and desires. And that was bad enough. He might even know she'd fallen in love with him. Empathic, ha! She'd thought he was exaggerating, but no, it was a gross understatement. Another lie.

She snatched his profile from the folder. "Can I keep this?"

"Aye. We have it all on computer." Connor turned off the television. "What are ye planning to do?"

"Get even." Darcy noted Austin's address on the profile.

"I doona think it's a good idea for ye to see him right now. Ye're too upset. Let me talk to him."

"He's my problem. I'll deal with it."

Connor hesitated, frowning.

"You made decisions for me in the past," Darcy added quietly. "Don't do it again."

A hint of pain crossed his face. "Verra well. I will leave this to you. But be careful. We doona know how he will react."

"I only spent a short time with him," Shanna said as she stood. "But he seemed like a nice guy."

"He seemed like a lot of things," Darcy muttered as she folded his profile and slipped it into her trouser pocket.

"I thought he had a more open mind than the others," Shanna continued. "This could be a good thing, you know. If you can convince him that some vampires are good, he could tell the others on the team."

Darcy balled her hands into fists. She didn't feel like being a diplomat tonight. "I want to go now."

"All right." Connor gathered together the DVD and folder. "I'll take ye to Roman's townhouse. Then, Ian can drive ye to the apartment."

This time, Darcy didn't object when Connor draped an arm around her shoulders and teleported away. Thirty minutes later, Ian double-parked on a narrow side street in Greenwich Village. It was only a few blocks from the alley where her life had changed forever.

"I'll find a place to park," Ian said. "How much time do ye need?"

Darcy glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "I think thirty minutes should be enough." She'd known Ian for four years now, yet it still rattled her that he looked like a teenager but was over four hundred years old.

"I'll be waiting for you outside his apartment at two-forty-five." Ian left the lights flashing on

Roman's BMW and dashed around to open Darcy's door. "Come." He led her to the front door of the apartment building.

"The mortal is verra strong, both physically and psychically, so be careful." Ian removed some tools from his sporran. In less than a minute, he had the door unlocked.

"Thank you." Darcy walked into the building and went up the elevator to the fourth floor. The hallway was long and dimly lit. Austin's apartment was halfway down, facing the street.

A sudden reluctance swept through her. What was she doing? Sure she was pissed, but this confrontation was going to hurt her as much as it would him. Because, dammit, she still cared. For the past few weeks, she'd felt attraction, desire, worry, even love for this man. The emotions had poured into a deep, hungry well, and it couldn't drain empty in just a few minutes.

She tried the doorknob. Locked, of course. Would he hear her if she knocked? Would he even let her in?

She considered finding Ian to let him fiddle with the locks. Or there was another possibility. She'd never tried it before. She'd never wanted to admit she was capable of it. It was a vampire thing.

But she was a vampire. Time to stop pretending she was merely a human with an eating disorder who kept odd hours. She was a creature of the night, and that was the reason Austin Olaf Erickson had come into her life.

She rested a palm against the door and concentrated. She only had to teleport to the other side— only move a few inches through space. She closed her eyes and focused her thoughts. Slowly, the floor beneath her feet disappeared. The door beneath her hand vanished. She quelled a sudden burst of panic and willed herself forward a few feet. Now, she concentrated on regaining her form. The room came into view, the same room she'd seen on Connor's surveillance disk. A quick look around assured her the room was empty.

She'd done it! She glanced back, noting the three deadbolt locks and alarm system control panel by the door. With a surge of pride, she realized even a macho, international spy couldn't keep her out.

Now, where was that lying scumbag?

She moved quietly across the room. Austin obviously spent a lot of time on the leather couch that sat opposite the television. The coffee table was littered with videotapes, a laptop, and old computer disks. Not very modern for an international spy. And not very sober, either. A dozen empty beer bottles decorated the end table.

In one corner of the room, a workout bench was surrounded by an assortment of weights. To the left, the living area opened into a small kitchen. To the right, she spotted a closed door.

She opened it and wandered inside. Moonlight from the window illuminated several pieces of furniture—a dresser, a bedside table, and a queen-sized bed. Her eyesight and hearing had grown keener since becoming a vampire. She could hear his soft and regular breathing, see each fold and twist of the bed sheet around his legs and hips. Apparently, he moved a lot in his sleep. He'd pushed the sheet down to his hips. She could see the waistband on his boxer shorts.

He was a beautiful man. Moonlight caressed the breadth of his back across the shoulders, the golden tint of his skin, the indentation of his spine as it came down his lower back. Darcy circled the bed, looking at him. The curve of his biceps, the soft, curly hair on his chest, the thick, tousled hair on his head, the little crease on his cheek where his dimple was. His skin looked bronzed and warm. How she had loved that warmth. But she had confused his body warmth with a warm, loving character.

Her eyes brimmed with tears. She'd fallen for him so fast. His jaw was shaded with whiskers, darker than the sun-bleached hair on his head. It gave him an aura of danger, as if a pirate lurked beneath the golden surfer-boy. But the skin along his cheekbones was soft and smooth. His thick eyelashes rested against the soft skin, lending him a look of sweet innocence.

She had believed in that innocence when all along there'd been a pirate underneath. How could you?

Her thoughts screamed in her head. How could you lie to me?

He moaned and turned onto his back.

She stepped back. Had he heard her thoughts?

He shook his head slowly, his face contorting with a grimace. "No," he mumbled. He kicked at the sheet. "No." His hands fisted. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his closed eyelids.

A bad dream, that was all. Well, he deserved bad dreams.

"No." He curled into a fetal position. "Darcy."

She inhaled sharply. He was dreaming about her. And his voice had sounded wrenched with pain. A guilty conscience? Or had he fallen for her, too? She backed out of the room. She recalled the way he had looked that night in the greenhouse when he'd thought no one was watching. He'd looked miserable.

She approached the couch. Were all these empty beer bottles his way of drowning the pain? The labels on the videotapes caught her eye. Local Four/Darcy Newhart. What on earth? She grabbed one and inserted it into the VCR. She located the remote control on the couch, then turned on the television. The volume was fairly low, but she punched the mute button just in case.

The tape started. Her knees gave out, and she plopped onto the couch. Oh, God, she remembered this. It was the opening of the dog park in the Bronx. She was there, alive, walking in the sunlight.

She pressed a hand against her mouth. Her eyes stung with tears. Dammit. She wasn't going to cry.

That life was over.

She turned off the television and examined the videos. A dozen in all, they covered her entire career and beyond. The last one's label read Darcy's Disappearance/Death? With a gasp, she dropped it on the table. Good God. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated on taking deep breaths.

A calmness settled over her when she realized Austin Erickson had been watching those tapes. He'd studied her like a test subject in order to manipulate her. The lying scumbag.

She picked up a computer disk and read the label. DVN/employee records. That bastard. She picked up two more. DVN/subscribers. DVN/advertisers. Good God, he must have downloaded everything from DVN. Is this what he'd done in her office? He'd come pretending that he wanted to see her, but all along he'd been seeking a way to destroy her workplace, her acquaintances, her entire world.

She glimpsed something yellow beneath the disks and pushed them to the side. She lifted the yellow legal pad to make out the writing in the dim light. Her name was scrawled on the bottom of a list.

And in the top margin, he'd written Vampires Must Die.

With a strangled cry, she dropped the pad on the table. A shudder coursed through her body. Die? He meant to kill her? She clenched her hands together and looked at the list once more. Gregori, Vanda, Maggie, the list went on naming all the people she cared about. Panic flooded her, threatening to drown her with the full extent of Adam's betrayal.

She leapt to her feet. She would not be victimized like this. Her life had been stolen from her before, but never again. That bastard, she should march in there and knock his head off. But first, she needed to protect her vampire friends. No more pretending she wasn't one of them. She was, and this was war.

She ripped the first few pages off the legal pad and tore them up into tiny pieces. She eyed his laptop. It was probably full of information. She'd take it with her when she left. As for the disks, they needed to go.

She gathered them up and strode into the kitchen. She opened the microwave and tossed them inside. Three minutes should be enough. She pushed the start button and stood back, smiling grimly as the sparks began to sizzle inside. Maybe the whole damned thing would blow up.

"Hold it right there," a deep voice spoke quietly. "Put your hands up where I can see them." Darcy turned slowly and saw Austin move from the doorway of his bedroom. Moonlight glinted off the metal revolver in his hand.

As he advanced, he pivoted from side to side, aiming his gun at the shadows. "Did you come alone?" He couldn't see well, Darcy realized. "I'm alone." He froze at the sound of her voice.

"Darcy?" She flipped on the kitchen light and enjoyed the shocked look on his face. "Surprised to see me, Austin?" She motioned to his revolver. "If you're planning to kill me now, you'll have to do better than that."