Page 25 of Bound by Vengeance
Vicky hated the sadness she sensed in him.“Do you want to forge your own path?”
Lifting his head, he held her gaze as headmitted, “Every day, but I’m on the path I was meant to walk.”
“You’re far too young to have that alreadyset for you. Have you ever heard of a fork in the road or a detour?What happens if you come across one of those?”
“I’ve veered off too many times already. Ican’t afford any more detours, too many count on me. I was bred andraised to lead the hunters.”
It sounded like such a lonely path to tread.“How old are you?” Vicky asked.
“I turned twenty-four on March fourth.You?”
“I’ll be twenty-two June fifteenth, but Ibecame a fully matured vampire, stopped aging, and came more fullyinto my abilities when I was twenty.”
“I see. Now that we know when to exchangebirthday cards, are you going to reveal to me what you think you’vefigured out with the missing people, or are you just going toinsult my kind some more?” he teased.
“Oh yes,” Vicky said and turned herattention back to the clippings.
She could spend days learning more abouthim, but this conversation had confirmed what she already knew; hecould never be hers. His path was unwavering and far different thanthe one she would follow. Still, she had to swallow the lump in herthroat a few times before she felt capable of speaking again.
“Anyway, so far, I’ve managed to Google andFacebook stalk about half the people who were reported missing inthese articles. About three quarters of them returned home. Out ofthe quarter still missing, half of those were found dead, and theother half are still unaccounted for. I have a feeling if I searchthe remaining missing names, I’ll get almost the same results,”Vicky said.
“Okay, so what does that mean?”
Vicky rested her hand on the stack ofarticles she’d piled on top of each other. “I believe looking atthe missing people is a waste of time. At least 90 percent of thehorrific, unsolved homicides you have here are probably related toa Savage, but there’s no way of knowing if that Savage was Joseph,someone working for him, or a rogue killing on their own.”
“So you think those are a waste of timetoo?”
“Yes and no. There is no pattern to any ofthese killings. If we could pin Joseph’s MO down, it might bedifferent, but we don’t know how he works, so how do we tell whichof these might be Joseph without knowing how he works?”
“We can’t.”
“No, we can’t,” she agreed. “I get whatyou’re trying to do here, I was hoping to find something linkingthem together too, but they’re too random.”
Nathan leaned against the door as Vicky’swords sank in. Maybe he’d been like a dog chasing its tail thisentire time, but it wassomethingfor him to focus on ratherthan randomly searching the streets every night in the hopes ofstumbling across Joseph.
“My brother-in-law, Brian, has been usinghis weird GPS-like ability to hunt for Joseph, but he’s had adifficult time pinning Joseph down because he travels a lot andtends to stay in large crowds.”
“Brian’s the vamp who’s trying to help Ronansearch for some of the vampires who once trained with Ronan andthat Joseph might try to recruit?”
“Yes. Brian’s located some of them but hadno luck with the others. They could be working with Joseph now, orthey could be dead. I’m not sure how Brian’s ability works, but hesaid he can’t locate the dead.”
“Interesting,” Nathan murmured.
Vicky hopped to her feet and groaned whenher sore back protested the movement. “So, let’s go.”
“Where?” he asked. After what she’drevealed, it seemed as if any kind of coordinated search effort forJoseph would be impossible.
“Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you what I thoughtof.”
He couldn’t help but smile at the way hermind seemed to go in a hundred different directions at once. “No,you didn’t.”
“Joseph is taking people and turning theminto Savages, but he’s not taking people who will be missed. Therewould befarmore missing people articles if that’s what hewas up to, and too many reports would draw attention to what he’sdoing from humans and us. The humans may not figure out exactlywhat is taking those people, but they’ll be more alert, and hecan’t have that. He’s going to take people and vamps from apopulation where they won’t be missed, such as the homeless, peoplewho are less fortunate, or a subculture few know about.”
“We’ve spoken with the homeless while onhunting missions. They’re missing some of their numbers, butnothing abnormal, and most didn’t know if the missing moved to anew location, died, or were arrested.”
“I know; I’ve heard the reports.”
“Okay….” His voice trailed off as he triedto figure out where she was going with this.
