She quickly got up and made her way past the crowd of patrons, mostly large men and a few large women, talking loudly, chugging coffee and eating meals big enough to feed a small third-world village. She gripped the senator by the forearm and leaned in close. “Could you be more obvious?”
With a sharp look her way, the senator frowned. “Are you—”
“Endora,” Roxy said. She’d had to pick a phony name when she’d emailed the senator, and her favorite TV witch had seemed like a good enough choice. “We need to make this fast.”
“I’m all for that.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“Yes.”
Roxy stopped walking, sent her a look.
“My private security guy, the guy who screens my email. And no one else. I wasn’t going to come here alone.”
Roxy glanced toward the entry, a big glass door.
“He took the limo around back, but I can get him back here fast if needed.”
“Gave you a panic button, did he?”
The senator averted her eyes. “Your message said this was about my new committee post. That you have information I need. What is it?”
She was a pretty thing, Roxy thought. And she had that idealistic fire in her eyes she’d glimpsed before in young politicians. Before they’d been around long enough to have it extinguished by the good ol’ boys who wanted to keep the status quo.
“This way.”
The two made their way to the table in the back, and Roxy slid into her chair and shoved a mug of coffee across the table. “I ordered for you.”
“I prefer tea.”
“You drink coffee today.”
Roxy sipped her own, and the senator followed suit. Without further delay, Roxy said, “There’s a former mental hospital called St. Dymphna’s in Mount Bliss, Virginia, that’s been commandeered by the DPI. You know about the DPI, right?”
The senator blinked rapidly, lowered her eyes. “I’m afraid that’s—”
“Classified. I know that. Look, Ms. MacBride, I don’t need you to tell me anything. I already know. I’m just trying to determine how much you know.”
“I … know a lot.”
“Not as much as you think, I’ll bet, so I’ll start at the beginning, and that’s the DPI. Division of Paranormal Investigations. A black ops division of the CIA in charge of investigating vampires. It’s been committing the kinds of crimes against other living beings over the past couple of centuries that make Saddam Hussein look like Mother Theresa. Only difference being their victims were vampires. Not humans.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she searched Roxy’s.
“Yeah, I can see that’s something you didn’t know. Well, here’s the thing. Right now they’re rounding up all the human beings with the Belladonna Antigen and stashing them in St. Dymphna’s.”
The senator swallowed hard. “Humans with the antigen have been targeted by … vampires more than any other group of—”
“That’s bullshit. Propaganda. Who told you that?”
“It’s part of the research I was given by—”
“Research. Their research has been done by capturing perfectly innocent people who happen to be vampires and torturing them. Killing them. Experimenting on them.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or why you think I’d believe—”
She’d started to get up, but Roxy gripped her wrist and jerked her back into her seat. “Humans with the Belladonna Antigen are the only ones capable of becoming vampires. Vampires sense them, and are compelled to watch over and protect them—even if it’s to their own detriment. They can’t help themselves. They’re incapable of harming the Chosen, which is what they call those people.”
Senator MacBride held Roxy’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m the oldest living person with the antigen,” Roxy told her. “I’m sure. Vampires have saved my life many times over the years, and I’ve seen them do the same for others. They’re my friends. Not evil. Not monsters. And no matter what the DPI tells you, those humans being rounded up and stuck in that asylum are not there for their own protection.”
“Then why …?”
“I don’t know. But whatever the reason, you can bet it isn’t good. You need to look into this.”
The senator nodded. “I will.”
“Don’t take too long.” Roxy pushed away from the table, dragged a twenty from her pocket and slapped it down. Then she headed for the restroom at the end of a long narrow hallway in the back. Glancing behind her to make sure she was unobserved, she ducked into the men’s room, rather than the women’s, and moved quickly into the second stall. Unseen. Perfect. She pulled large jeans and a pillow for padding out of the bag she’d stashed there earlier, switched her jacket for a bigger one, ditched the wig and glasses, donned a moustache and beard, pulled on a billed cap with a bulldog logo on the front, and headed out again. She walked right by the senator on her way out, and the woman didn’t even give her a second glance. She was on the phone, probably with her security guy.
Outside, Roxy saw what had to be the senator’s car pulling to a stop. Off to one side a man in a long dark coat stood watching. Not the senator’s bodyguard. Someone else.
Roxy had known this was dangerous. She was glad she’d taken the precautions she had. Because either Senator Marlene MacBride was being watched …
… or she was.
Near Bangor, Maine
Brigit stood high on the hilltop, overlooking the winding road below, and watched as Utana spoke with a tall male mortal. The man’s back was toward her, and she observed only that he was thin and wearing a brown “duck” type coat against the chill of the early morning. He drove a big SUV, dark green in color. It fit in here, just as his coat did. Perhaps he was a local. One of those bleeding heart, trusting types who took in strangers.
The idiot didn’t know what kind of power he was playing with. Or what kind of danger. Utana was a time bomb. A killing machine with a warped mind.
There’s so much more to him than that.
Now where had that thought come from?
Utana’s face was visible in the early-morning sun. She’d deliberately stayed far enough away that she hoped he wouldn’t sense her, but God knew she could still sense him. Not the killing machine part of him, but the man. The man who, she realized, had wept at the sight of all the carnage he’d caused. The man who’d kissed her as if she were the first shelter he’d seen on an endless trek across a burning desert. As if she were his first sip of water.
And she had to kill him.
God, what the hell was wrong with the world, anyway?
She sighed and dragged her attention back to the scene unfolding below. In spite of her mission, she found herself feeling ridiculously glad some Good Samaritan was taking pity on the once great king. Oh, she had no doubt the guy would regret it later, once he realized that Utana was completely off his rocker—a fact the stranger should have picked up on from the simple fact that Utana was wearing a filthy bedsheet like a toga.
Wait, something was happening. The local was opening the passenger side door of his SUV. Holding it as if he expected Utana to get in.
Hell, no, Brigit thought. There