Lavos Read online

  “Don’t! There’s only three of them. The fourth one might be close to her.” Mark was suddenly there, tearing the tablet out of Brent’s hands. “They run fast, damn it! It’s too quiet without the wind blowing and they might hear your engine start. Sound carries in these mountains. Stay there until the sun rises. You’re the only hope we have!”

  “Shut up!” Peggy hissed. “Listen. They stopped.”

  Mark turned his head, staring at something to the side of the camera. His mouth parted. “They’re gone. I don’t see them on any of the cameras.” He looked at Jadee. “You’re locked in, right? You didn’t open the shutters?”

  “You think they heard us talking to her?” Brent cursed. “Fuck!”

  She abandoned the tablet on the table. Pure fear coursed through Jadee and it helped launch her to her feet, moving fast to the side door. She reached it and threw the bolts and bars that helped secure the door in place. She glanced at the windows, making certain all the security shutters were down. They were.

  “Jadee!”

  She returned to the table and picked up the forgotten tablet. “What?”

  Brent’s eyes were wide with fear. “Are you locked in with all the shutters down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep quiet and turn off the lights. You don’t want to draw their attention if they don’t know you’re there,” he whispered.

  “She said the shutters are down. They can’t see if the lights are on or not,” Peggy whispered. “Be quiet.”

  Jadee didn’t move. No way was she going to turn off the lights and sit in the dark to startle at every sound.

  She remembered the camping trip on her twelfth birthday, when they’d told her Werewolves were coming, and her father’s team had played some recorded wolf howls. She’d damn near peed herself sitting in front of the campfire until they’d laughed, pointing out the speakers.

  Then there was the time they’d left fake gold coins around her bed when she’d been eight, telling her leprechauns had visited while she slept. Saying how luck she’d been not to be carried off by them. She’d believed it until she’d realized the coins were made of chocolate, covered with foil. Other pranks they’d pulled flashed through her mind, too many. It made her think this had to be another joke. They could have put footage together of the so-called Vampires and staged the entire thing.

  It had sucked being Victor Trollis’s daughter at times, thanks to her father and his team of researchers dragging her all over the world hunting for mythical creatures. It had only stopped after she’d demanded to live with her grandmother, to have some semblance of normalcy.

  She got a grip on her hammering heart and glared at the camera. “You guys suck. Put my dad on now. Is this payback for not driving to Arizona for his birthday two months ago? Some of us have to work real jobs instead of living off my dad’s trust fund, pursuing crazy notions of myths. How did that last trip work out for you guys, anyway? Did you find a Chupacabra? No? Big surprise!”

  Something landed on the roof of the RV hard enough to make it rock.

  Jadee lifted her gaze, her mouth parting.

  “Be quiet,” Brent breathed.

  Heavy tread stomped from the kitchen area above her to the back, toward her father’s bedroom.

  She put the tablet down, ignoring it, and grabbed her dad’s gun.

  The handle of the door she’d used to get inside rattled but the lock held. Something smashed into it, sounding very much like a fist. A deep hiss followed.

  “Fuck me,” Jadee muttered. She stood, only glancing down to make sure the safety was off on the gun.

  The stomping ceased for a second. Whoever was up there turned around, walking back. Each footstep was loud enough for her to track easily.

  She slid out the gun’s clip and checked the ammunition. It was loaded with real bullets, not blanks. She’d been raised around enough guns to know the difference by sight. She slid the clip back in and checked the chamber, seeing a round already loaded. “Dad? Not funny.”

  Something smashed into the glass behind one of the shutters. The sound assured her it did enough damage to probably web the safety glass. That had to be either a baseball bat or something equally destructive.

  Her father wouldn’t harm his precious Road Warrior—the title he’d dubbed his RV—for a joke. It had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars to specially outfit it the way he’d wanted.

  “Shut up!” Mark demanded, his voice coming from the forgotten tablet on the table.

  She turned, glancing down to see all three of her father’s team staring at her, huddled around their camera. She reached over and found the volume, muting them as she stood in the middle of the aisle, body tense.

  A loud boom came from the top of the roof. In seconds, it repeated, and in her mind, she could almost imagine one of those things doing the same thing to her father’s RV that they’d done to the trailer, those freaky, weird leaps into the air only to slam down moments later. A third and fourth loud boom assured her one of them seemed to be testing the strength of the roof.

  Jadee looked at the gun in her hand. The Glock 19 suddenly didn’t make her feel safe. She kept hold of it and inched down the short hallway, going directly under the loud thumps from above to reach the hall closet. She yanked it open, shoving coats aside to get to the hidden back panel. The six-digit code had always been her birthday. She opened the safe and reached for the thigh holster. It took about a minute to secure it on and snuggly slip the handgun into the cradle, the weight of it comforting. She felt a little safer gripping the Bushmaster ACR rifle. It only took seconds to slide in a clip.

  Her hands trembled as she shoved another clip down the front of her shirt. She kicked the closet door shut, hugging the weapon close.

  “I’m loaded for bear,” she yelled. “Break in and I’ll open fire on you. I don’t give a shit what the hell you are. Having holes ripping through your body is going to ruin your fun! I’ve got enough rounds to turn your ass into Swiss cheese.”

  A female scream coming from outside made Jadee jerk, shoving her back against the closet. She was afraid she might fire out of pure fear and pressed her finger down along the underside of the weapon. She used her left hand to chamber a round so it was ready to go if the side door gave way.

  A second set of footsteps stormed closer from above and suddenly what sounded like a heavy body dropped flat. She winced, swearing she could hear something scratching the roof.

  “Do you hear me?” she yelled louder. “I have live ammunition and I will shoot you!”

  Something slammed against the door but the locks held. There wasn’t a window there, and the closed shutters next to it didn’t give her a view outside. She braced her legs, worried her knees might collapse under her otherwise. The last thing she wanted to do was fall over from fright.

  Another loud thump came from up top, near the back. That made three she could count, since the scratching sounds didn’t stop and the person on the other side of the door continued to batter it with what sounded like a heavy object.

  “Assholes!” Jadee shouted. “Enough! I’m not screwing around. I have an arsenal at my back and I’m gripping an assault rifle. My dad is a paranoid gun fanatic who made me learn how to fire anything that took bullets or shells from the time I could walk. I won’t miss, and I’ll keep firing. I can reload faster than you can say ‘oh shit’. Take your freaky circus act somewhere else!”

  Silence reigned. It was eerie and sudden.

  Jadee sucked in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. It was possible her threats had made them reconsider making her a target. She bit her bottom lip, relaxing her grip on the rifle. The weight of the handgun against her outer thigh seemed suddenly heavy.

  “Goddamn,” she rasped. Her dad and his geek squad had actually found a fucking nest of Vampires. What are they doing in the middle of Nowhere, Alaska? It didn’t make sense.

  “Come out,” a man’s creepy voice crooned.

  Jadee stopped breathing, trapping air
inside her lungs. It sounded as if a nail slid across metal above her, from where the voice had originated.

  “We want to play,” a female voice called out from the other side of the door.

  “And make you bleed.” Another man laughed above.

  “And scream!” the female added.

  Jadee forced herself to breathe and tightened her grip on the rifle, sliding her finger over the trigger. A chill ran down her spine. They sounded deranged. She was tempted to tell them to break in and find out who did the bleeding, but she remained mute, waiting to see what they’d do next. The RV was a tank on wheels. Her father had designed it to withstand anything he hunted.

  She moved fast toward the front cab area, reaching up to the control panel that was mounted on the ceiling right above the driver’s seat. She read each button and hovered her finger over the one labeled Panic.

  She hesitated. The siren blasting might scare them off. She debated pressing it. Another scenario popped into her head.

  Someone might hear it and come. Like the cops.

  * * * * *

  “What are we doing way out here?” Kar jerked his coat tighter around his body. “It’s a Friday night.”

  “We have to go check on a human family and relay a message to them. Lorn wants us to do it and he’s our leader, so here we are. A human called the lodge because she can’t reach her family.” Lavos nonchalantly shrugged. “Besides, it’s not as if you had anything else to do.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Lavos grinned. “No thanks. You’re not my type.”

  His friend flipped him off but grinned. “As if you could get that lucky.”

  “Not even in jest, man. Although, you do have big tits.”

  “I don’t have man boobies.”

  “Yeah, you do. You get any bigger and we’re going to have to special order your shirts with built-in bras.”

  “Shut up,” Garson groused from the backseat of the open Jeep. “The Tab sisters are visiting and I could be pounding Ginna if I hadn’t been assigned this bullshit task. I don’t want to hear anything about sex or tits.”

  Kar snorted. “The only pounding you’d have been doing is with your fist after you watched Ginna walk off with me. Everyone knows she only visits our clan because I’m there. And who knows? Maybe Kinna’s given up her preference for men over sixty and would have bedded me too. I bet they’re crying right now because I’m out on this stupid drive.”

  “I want a mate. You just like fucking. I’m a better choice than you, and I would have told Ginna so. She would have come home with me.”

  Kar snorted and shot Garson an amused grin. “Your place is a mess. You ever take a woman there and they’d be convinced you’re looking for a maid instead.”

  “It’s not that bad. I’m just not a neat freak. Why did you pick us to go with you, Lavos?” Garson asked. “What about Veso? Couldn’t you have called him?”

  “He’s bonding with his new mate.”

  “A human one at that.” Kar chuckled. “I never saw that coming in a million years. I almost feel sorry for her. He’s a grumpy bastard.”

  “I couldn’t believe Lorn was so great about accepting her into our clan,” Garson mused. “Does Veso have blackmail on your older brother the way Davis had on Decker?”

  Sometimes Lavos’s friends annoyed him. “No. Of course not, Garson. We wanted change in the clan.”

  “That’s a big one,” Kar sighed. “Human-huge.”

  “Lorn is very smart,” Lavos said. “We talked about it afterward. He figured some of the clan probably hoped Veso would challenge him for leadership once he showed up alive. They believed until then that he was loyal to Decker.”

  “So Lorn accepted his mate as a thank you for not making him have to fight and kill another one of our clan members? I get that.” Kar nodded.

  “Wrong. Lorn knew Veso had already made enemies who might come after him. Veso pledged loyalty to him, so my brother did the same. Only a dick like Decker would deny a man his mate.”

  “So that means we can start testing matings with humans?” Garson sounded excited. “That’s going to be awesome! I’m so getting me a mate.”

  “Wrong again. Keep your hands off women in the nearby towns.”

  “That’s not fair,” Garson snarled. “I could rock a human chick’s world.”

  “Maybe if you ever learned mind control,” Kar muttered. “And told her to pretend she was experiencing an earthquake.”

  “I heard that.” Garson reached between the seats and punched him in the arm. “I’m great in bed.”

  Lavos gripped the wheel and turned off onto a dirt road, slowing the Jeep. “The house is ahead. Knock off the banter before they overhear your conversation. We’re here on official business.”

  “So who bitched because someone else had better things to do than answer their phone? I’m sure that’s all this is.” Garson cleared his throat. “They were probably avoiding talking to them.”

  Lavos slowed more, on alert as he glanced all around, mindful of his surroundings. “It was the man’s mother. He didn’t call her when he should have. I’m not going into the full story but she’s worried. Lorn said to check on them and give them the message. That’s what we’re doing.”

  “Why is this our problem?” Garson leaned forward between the seats. “Bullshit, I tell you.”

  “You’re supposed to be an enforcer, not a whiner,” Kar replied. “Can you at least act like you take your duty seriously? And the task probably is bullshit but we still need to check it out. I’m sure the lines are down because of that storm that blew through and they’ll get fixed eventually. It’s normal, but people who don’t live in this area wouldn’t know that.”

  “I’m hungry,” Garson muttered.

  “Shut up.” Lavos frowned as the darkened house came into view. No lights shone in any windows of the two-story home set back into the woods. A truck was parked by the front door and a sat car next to it. “You should have eaten before we left.”

  Lavos hit the brakes and stopped behind the truck. He didn’t bother to wear a seat belt so he slid out of the driver’s seat and quickly approached the front door.

  He was three steps up the porch before he came to an abrupt halt.

  Kar bumped into his back. “Why’d you stop?”

  Lavos sniffed again. “Smell.”

  His friend inhaled and suddenly moved to his side. “Shit.”

  “That stinks,” Garson whispered. “What the hell died?”

  Lavos took a few more steps, his vision adjusting to the darkness. The door was closed but upon closer inspection, he saw the splintered wood near the handle and lock. He kicked out, slamming his boot against the door to send it flying inward. He entered the house first, knowing his friends followed close behind. The stench greatly intensified now that there wasn’t a barrier between them and the interior.

  The dining room table lay in pieces with glass fragments all around it. Lavos reached out and flipped on the lights. They instantly came on, and more destruction awaited, with the couch in the living room on its back. Dry red stains were smeared all over it.

  “Blood,” Kar confirmed. “A lot of it.”

  “Shit,” Garson muttered from another room. “It looks like someone was slaughtered in the kitchen. There’s enough splatter in here on the walls and ceiling to assure me they didn’t survive.”

  Lavos spun, following the source of the putrid stench of death, tracking it up the stairs. Dark stains on the carpet revealed more blood. He located all three bodies in the master bedroom. He hesitated inside the room, his gaze traveling over the horror of what remained of the family that had lived in the house.

  “What the hell did this?” Kar inched around him. “They’re in pieces. I don’t pick up any traces of gunpowder. This sure wasn’t a murder/suicide of someone going on a bender and losing their shit.”

  “It wasn’t an animal,” Garson announced. “It would have eaten them where they were killed instead of obviously ca
rrying them upstairs to dump in this room.”

  “No shit,” Kar muttered. “Animals wouldn’t have politely closed the front door either after they were gone.”

  Lavos approached the body closest to him and crouched, studying it. “They’ve been dead for at least two days, and you’re right. This was done with intent.” He reached out and dreaded touching the head but had no choice as he pressed his fingers against the back of blood-matted hair. He studied the way they’d been torn apart and cursed. “This wasn’t done by an animal or one of ours. I’m thinking Vampire.”

  Garson walked around the carnage, studying the other two corpses. “How the hell can you tell?”

  Lavos sighed. “They’d be even more shredded if a Lycan had done this.”

  “This wasn’t a feeding,” Kar spat. “Too much blood was spilled. This was outright cruel and vicious. It had to be a human.”

  “No.” Lavos examined the remains. “See this? The bones were snapped and this person’s arm was ripped off. A Lycan would have used his claws. We’d see a lot more shredding of the skin. A human wouldn’t have been strong enough to do this without a weapon. I’m not seeing any sharp instrument marks on the exposed bones.”

  “GarLycan? Gargoyle?” Kar inched closer.

  Lavos shook his head. “They would have disposed of the bodies. They’re anal about that. Whatever did this was stronger than a human but not a shifter. There’s no animal hair in this mess. Look at the hand over there.” He pointed. “They grabbed some long hair from whoever killed them. It looks human, and it’s black. Notice these people have light brown to blonde hair? It came from whoever attacked them.”

  “Fucking crazy Vamps,” Garson cursed. “Why are they screwing with us so much recently? Who wants to make the call?”

  Lavos rose up. “There’s no cell signal this far out and I didn’t bring a satellite phone. I wasn’t expecting to find this kind of trouble.”

  Kar grimly stared at Lavos. “Are you thinking what I am? They must have intentionally taken out a pole somewhere so these people couldn’t call for help. How many Vamps do you think did this? A nest of bloodsuckers or just one sick bastard?”