Page 10 of Vampires & Bikers

Jon Paul Harris is King Vlas’s chief advisor and we don’t always agree. I am more hands-on and he is the knife-in-the-back type.

“Careful Tick,” I tell her.

“Yeah, yeah,” the kid says. I bet she’s rolling her eyes.

Tick monitors internal comms and also runs several bots across various Internet sites to ensure we stay on top of the chatter out there. There is no vampire intelligence agency as such, but I try to stay on top of things. We keep it under the radar though. Even among our own, we never know who is really on our side. You trust no one.

“I want you to look into a town called Sunside Swamp and an individual called Sunny, who may be some kind of drug lord down here. He is connected to the shifter MC club Diablos.”

“On it,” she says.

I lie back and let my thoughts run over the events of the past day. What I have seen in the South has changed my views on the Southern territories, areas that have always been predominantly shifter areas. They used to be under developed, sleepy areas where not much was happening outside of fishing and drinking. Sunside Swamp was affluent and organized. Things were happening here but, what exactly I wasn’t sure, and why did I have the feeling that it was not good news for us?

While I waited for Tick to report back, I thought again of Ruby and the fear in her eyes when she spoke of her boyfriend. There was no love lost there but she was obviously afraid of him. I needed more information on her too.

I sent Tick a message:

Get me info on Ruby Winton from Buzzard Creek too. Anything you can find.

Chapter 5

Ruby

Not long after Luc leaves, Danny barges into the house.

“What the fuck is that smell!”

I look up, shamefaced, “Sorry, I forgot a pan on the burner, fell asleep and burnt the eggs!”

“Jesus, Ruby, you’ll burn the house down!”

He opens the door and windows for some fresh air and stands outside. The smell is bad but I had to do something to mask the eau d’ vampire that was definitely hanging about the house. Danny had a very keen sense of smell, like most shifters and Luc had been here for some time. I figured the smell of scorched food would mask the vampire smell and I was right.

I fetched him a beer and we sat outside on the porch steps.

“I can’t stay long,” Danny said. “We’ve got a vampire to hunt!” I saw the excitement shine in his eyes.

“A vampire?”

“Yeah! He was at the club, you didn’t see him?”

I had to be careful with Danny, if he found out I was lying to him, there would be hell to pay.

“No, I left early,” I said. “One of the customers grabbed me and I knocked my head. Felt a bit dizzy after that.”

“You okay?” he asked.

I had to remind myself that Danny probably did care about me, in his own way but he was only nice to me when it suited him, when he felt I was doing my part, acting the way a good girlfriend should. I didn’t want to think of the times he’d slapped me for mouthing off to him, as he put it. Back-chatting was not allowed in the strict hierarchy of pack wolves that he belonged to. As a female member of his pack, I was even lower in the pecking order, basically at the bottom.

He frowned. “Luiz said he saw you talking to him.”

“Who?” I played dumb.

“The vampire!” He slammed the bottle onto the ground next to him.

“Well, he’s mistaken. I’d remember that.”

“He said you told the boss Grace wanted to see him.” His voice was becoming more menacing. I felt a cold sliver of fear running down my spine. Danny didn’t need much to set him off.

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