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“Guess so.”
“Then you’d better take care of her or I’ll be coming to kick your ass.”
Doubtful.
The cop headed for the door. “Better hurry out of here,” he tossed back. “The way I figure it, two squad cars will be pulling up in about thirty minutes.”
Dick.
“You sent the uniforms after me?” A whistle from Dee. “Damn, man, you really did come to toss me in jail.”
The dick in question glanced back at Dee. “No.” A hint of sadness there. Regret. “I came to give you a chance, one I knew the others wouldn’t. And that’s why the uniforms won’t be arriving until you’re gone.” A flash of white teeth. “So move that sweet ass, Dee. Get out there and find those vamps.”
* * *
“So where the hell are we headed?” Simon asked and tightened his fingers around the leather steering wheel. They’d been staying to the back roads, trying to fly under the radar as they headed back to the city, and the silence—thick, heavy—was getting on his last nerve.
Was Dee having regrets? Maybe seeing the old boyfriend had made her hesitate. That jerk had the worst timing.
“There aren’t any feeding rooms in Baton Rouge.”
Feeding rooms. His back teeth clenched. The places set up to look like bars but, deep inside, they were just all-you-can-eat buffets for vampires. Humans went inside and some never came back out. Others got addicted. They became controlled by the vamps, and they would do anything to go back into the rooms.
“Why aren’t there any?” he asked. “I thought those places were in damn near every city now.” Some said they were safe houses for vampires. And those some just really knew how to bullshit.
Not a safe house. More like a slaughterhouse.
Even though humans were the preferred prey in the feeding rooms, the vamps never had to worry about the humans turning on them and shouting to the authorities about the new night club that served up blood. After all, one bite, and a vampire could link with a human’s mind.
A link meant control. You didn’t turn on those who controlled you.
For the humans, it was all too easy to get hooked on the thrill of the bite.
If the vamp wanted the victim to feel pain, the bite could hurt more than a knife wound or gunshot.
The bite could also feel better than sex.
It was all up to the vampire. Pleasure or pain.
Simon slanted a quick glance at Dee’s still figure.
Almost better than sex.
“I’ve made a point of shutting down any feeding room that tries to spring up,” she admitted quietly.
Oh, yeah, he bet she had. “So where do we start then?”
He felt her eyes. Didn’t have to look, just knew those chocolate eyes were on him. “I thought you had vamp contacts in this town.”
Simon knew to tread carefully. “Ah, the vamps I know scattered when word came down about the Born Master.”
“Why? If they weren’t linked to him, there’d be no need to flee.”
The link. The screwed-up family tree that connected vampires. A Born Master took a victim and formed a psychic connection with his prey. But if the Master turned that prey into the Taken, and the new vampire took another victim, the Born Master’s connection would trickle into the new prey and keep trickling down through every blood exchange. Like freaking tentacles, reaching out for minds and spirits.
A Born Master wasn’t just stronger physically than other vampires. He was like a psychic black hole, sucking in all the prey he could find.
And controlling them.
