Page 103 of Secrets in the Dark
A stab of the needle into the nurse who was so shocked she never let out a peep. Then a very brief wait for the doctor. He waited behind the door, seizing the man in a neck lock the minute he walked back in, cutting off his breath...
Cutting off any chance of him screaming.
High security, right. Men running around, armed, all ready to keep prisoners under control.
When the first two guards walked in, they naturally assumed that he was the doctor and then...well, then they were easily dispatched—dead or dying, he wasn’t sure. He arranged the room so that the bodies couldn’t be found quickly and the stage was set. The nurse was out of the way in the closet. The doctor was on the table in prison garb, ready for a transfusion because of the massive amount of blood found with Dante’s fallen body.
Except, of course, there was no chance that any amount of blood would help the man.
With the doctor’s wallet, keys and clothing, the rest was easy.
Accused of so many horrendous murders! Expected to receive the death penalty.
And there he was, smiling and waving as he walked out into the sunshine. And freedom.
He could already envision his next...transformation. A beauty, of course, sleeping in eternal peace and immortal in beauty.
He could almost see it.
He could almosttasteit.
He truly was king.
Chapter One
“Istill don’t see how it was possible,” FBI Special Agent Della Hamilton said with frustration. Their new “special” FBI unit had worked so hard and taken such risks to arrest and incarcerate Stephan Dante, the self-proclaimed King of the Vampires, that it was unimaginable he had managed to escape while awaiting trial.
Della and her partner were headed back to the United States ready to meet with the horrified warden of the jail where Dante had been awaiting trial. They were both exhausted but wired because they hadn’t slept since they’d heard the news the man was back on the streets.
Just days after they’d finally caught up with one of his protégés who had shed the concept of competing in the vampire field to become King of the Rippers, they had learned Stephan Dante had somehow managed a miraculous escape. He had killed the doctor who was desperately trying to save his life, had sent the nurse to intensive care where she remained and had killed one guard and seriously wounded another on his way out. He’d walked easily into the sunlight after having taken the doctor’s clothing, identification and keys—and had simply driven away. The most bizarre thing seemed to be that it was on tape, though Dante had managed—through a tech friend he’d met while incarcerated, Della believed—to create false images of the infirmary while he had carried out his attacks with a scalpel.
They hadn’t been “vampire” assaults and kills.
They had just been murders and attacks that had been expedient. He had a way of killing he considered to be unique and special. But he was also a cold-blooded killer who would rid himself of anyone who got in his way by any means necessary.
“Dante continues to carry out the impossible.” Mason Carter, seated at her side in the FBI’s Blackbird plane that was rushing them back to the States, shook his head and stared straight ahead as he spoke. “He manages to befriend every criminal who can do something he wants done or provide something he needs. I’ve never seen a criminal as capable of accruing funds and forged documents in the way he has managed.” He let out a sigh. “I’ve been conflicted on the death penalty all my life. You execute the wrong man—or woman—and you can’t fix it if you’re proved wrong later. You let a man like Dante live and...others have already paid the price.”
“He never made it to trial, Mason,” Della reminded him. “This is horrible, but it isn’t on us. And we will—”
“Get him again,” Mason said.
He was still staring straight ahead. She wasn’t worried about Mason as her partner—no inner conflict would interfere with his abilities as an investigator—or as a man to have at her back. He was adept at numerous martial arts, proficient with a knife and also a crack shot who could move with incredible dexterity, speed and quiet when necessary. He had blue eyes that could appear as dark as the deep blue sea—or as piercing and cold as shafts of ice. It didn’t hurt that he was a dark-haired man who stood at a good six-foot-four. But, as they all knew, a bullet or an explosive could kill, no matter your size or expertise.
He had told her once that a good agent’s mind was the greatest weapon they could carry.
She just worried about whatever torture he might be putting himself through. He’d been military before the FBI and had been responsible for the apprehension of some of the country’s most heinous killers. He had seen his last partner gunned down before him. He had grown weary of killing. He’d been working solo until he and Della had met on a case in a Louisiana bayou, taking down a serial killer there before becoming the first chosen agents for Blackbird, a unique unit created to help when the very specialized assistance the Krewe of Hunters could give was needed in Europe.
They had worked with local law enforcement from Norway, Scotland, Ireland and France. Interpol liaison François Bisset, French detective Jeanne LaPierre, English detective inspector Edmund Taylor and Norseman detective Jon Wilhelm would be joining them the next day.
Their sixsome had followed Dante, in one way or another, through France, Britain and Norway, then back to the States.
They’d all expected to be here. Adam Harrison and Jackson Crow had set up two meetings for the group of them at Quantico—one to debrief and the other for a chance to discuss the future of their new unit within the Krewe of Hunters.
Della wondered if Jackson and Adam knew things about their team that they didn’t know themselves. They had discovered that Edmund, a striking and formidable-looking man in his thirties, could converse with the dead. As always, very few among the spirit world chose to communicate with the living for their own reasons. But she didn’t know about Wilhelm, Bisset or LaPierre. Law enforcement might often speak about protocol, especially within different countries, but in meeting people one seldom just asked bluntly if their fellows could see the dead.
They were back in the States, but with Stephan Dante on the loose, they could be heading anywhere in the world in the days to come.
“Mason, we can’t second-guess anything,” she said quietly. “We take oaths. You and I both believe in standing up and honoring them. We follow the law,” she reminded him.
