communities. Rental property. Strip malls. Undeveloped property. His estate was scattered all over North Carolina and Tennessee. One thing stood out. The nasty vamp had a collector’s appreciation of houseboats. He had three houseboats in storage or in dock at different lakes within a couple hundred miles, the farthest on Douglas Lake in Tennessee. I might be willing to bet that, after spending the last few years sane and locked up with crazy-assed rogues, fed cooling pig blood running in a trough, he might like waking up at sunset on the water, maybe with a well-drained corpse or two on the floor beside him.
But that was just a guess. I’d be searching through the properties for decades to find the guy. Except for the last little text Reach sent, a text that proved he was worth every one of the thousands of dollars he was charging Leo. Thomas had accessed a credit card. The rogue-vamp had removed a car from storage, hit an ATM for cash, bought gas, then clothes, and each purchase had been in a linear direction, due west. The Naturaleza, human- draining, needs-a-good-staking vamp was heading into Tennessee.
My heart got lighter and my smile meaner. So, I’d hunt me some Naturaleza vamp butt and burn off the anger flaring deep inside, a char of hot rage I couldn’t name and didn’t want to look at too closely. And maybe the rage, and killing something, would chase away the fear that Beast wasn’t coming back. Ever.
A small voice whispered that my protective fighting leathers were in storage and I was short on silvered blades and stakes, but I didn’t care. I had guns and a mind to shoot something. I gassed up, removed the silver tipped stakes from my minuscule saddlebags, and sent Reach a text to keep an eye on Evangelina Everhart Stone’s finances for withdrawals or credit card usage. Satisfied, I turned Fang’s key. With the bike’s roar, I headed west on I-40, into Tennessee.
Long before dawn, I had spent a lot of cash as bribes. A fifty to a clerk at a storage facility Thomas Stevenson owned, to get the kid to call if he spotted anyone matching the vamp’s description. I had left another fifty with the night guard of a gaited community where Thomas had a small, elegant home. And two more fifties with others who might reasonably be in a position to notice if a hungry vamp came by. I also paid off the security guard at a marina on Lake Junaluska, and had just put three bullet holes into the hull of the fancy party boat/houseboat Thomas owned. I could have used the M4 strapped to my back, but the shotgun was far more noisy than the .380 semiautomatic handgun. Beast was still a no-show, and killing the fancy boat was intensely satisfying, I was watching it sink in five feet of water when my cell chirped. It was Reach.
“I’m not paying for this call,” I said.
“Consider it gratis. Part of belonging to the human race, doing my good deed of the day.” When I snorted, he laughed. “Right. I was checking police reports and got a notice of a man killed in what looks like a vampire draining not too far off of I-40.”
“Where specifically?”
“Just outside the national park campground on Cataloochee Creek.” He gave me the address of the campground and sent me a map of the place, not that I really needed it. There was only one way in to the valley, and unless they had paved it, that meant a narrow, winding, gravel road with steep drop offs and no guard rails, not the sort of place I wanted to ride a partially chopped bike in the middle of the night.
“Since you’re being so helpful,” I said, “why don’t you compare the files of properties the vamp owns to the roads around the creek and campground.”
“Help comes with a price,” Reach said instantly. Without waiting for me to respond, he went on, “Stevenson once owned stock in Blue Ridge Paper Products. His great-grandfather, grandfather, and father owned land in the Cataloochee Valley. And yes, he still has the old farm near the creek.”
“Your pleasure is my profit. I’m checking on upgrades to the property’s security system, sending GPS, and Google pics of the address. Okay, yeah. The security system is pretty standard, but it’s gonna be a bitch getting in via the drive. He concentrated his external security there. Cameras and motion detectors.”
I looked over the pics as he talked. “How about security on the creek side?”
“Minimal. You swimming in?”
“Something like that. If we can prove that he’s—”
“You’re in luck. The system just went inactive and was reactivated. He’s gone to ground at pappy’s place. And while I’m being helpful, a call just went out to the local law that a man was seen shooting a pistol into a houseboat on Lake Junaluska.” The connection ended.
“Funny guy.” I closed the phone, pulled the silly velvet jacket on against the chill, and fired up Fang. I can’t kill vamps if I’m in jail for malicious mischief or felony vandalism. If there is such a charge. I wasn’t in a mood to find out.
When I was safely away from the houseboat I’d killed, I stopped Fang, and speed-dialed my pals, the paddlers. Neither answered, but I left a message for each. “I’m going after a vamp. I need transportation down Cataloochee Creek at dawn. If you can meet me at the river before sunrise, call. I’ll need to hit land here.” I gave the GPS of the destination—Thomas’ place.
I figured that Thomas hadn’t picked his first night of freedom and daytime lair by a coin toss. Cataloochee Creek was home, an emotional attachment to the human world, as much as any place would be home to a vamp so far gone in bloodlust that he believed humans were nothing but dinner.
Before dawn, I turned off I-40 on to the road—loosely defined—and started down into the Cataloochee Valley. The roadbed was worse than I remembered, maybe because it was so dark, I was running on no sleep, two shape-changes, and hadn’t taken in enough calories to fuel the shifts. I had finished off most of the leftovers in Evangelina’s fridge, but after the spell in the basement, I hadn’t thought to eat, which was weird, for me. Now, I was hungry and worried; Beast was still nowhere in my mind. She didn’t appear, not even when I concentrated on the herd of elk in the park. She hadn’t thought anything snarky at me, or even milked my conscious mind with her claws since the bright light and disrupted spell in the
Cataloochee Creek’s boat access in the national campground provided easy access to the waterway. I parked and wandered through the dark, trying to imagine the land back when it was farmland, rich crops on the valley floor, or timberland, all the trees gone, the earth laid bare, back when it was family land, more isolated in some ways, less isolated in others. Beast had lived in these mountains back then, but she still wasn’t offering anything interesting, no insights, no memories, no thoughts, not even when I heard an owl hoot, lost and lonely in the distance.
I got back two affirmative texts from the paddlers. They were on their way. Dave asked if I had proper clothes. I was wearing more than undies, so I wrote back, “Yes,” but had a feeling I was missing something. Waiting for dawn, I took shelter under a covered communal picnic area. And it started to rain, tiny drops, stinging and sharp as ice picks. In seconds it was a deluge.
Trying to stay dry, I checked the security schematic of Stevenson’s house. Ran through some possible scenarios. Zipped up my jacket against the chill. I accessed the Naturaleza’s personal history to discover that the man held a black belt in karate, aikido, and kendo, which meant that if he had access to swords or long-blades, things could get dicey. Good thing I was planning to shoot him before I got close.
Mike arrived at the park first, cutting his engine and coasting the final distance to park. Quiet hours were advertised, which I had busted to heck and gone with Fang. When he spotted me in the dark, he pulled a two man raft from his truck and turned on an air compressor, inflating the raft in minutes. Mike was wearing a wetsuit with a dry-top over it and looked cozy. Even with my enhanced skinwalker metabolism, I was shivering. I figured that denim and velvet weren’t the “proper clothes” Dave had meant. And my wet-weather-riding gear was in storage in the same place as my fighting leathers. Dang it.
Dawn was still a glint in Mother Nature’s eye when Dave arrived, coasting down as Mike had done. At least they had good camping manners. He grinned and shook his head when he saw my bedraggled state, tossed me a poncho, which I pulled over my head. He hefted his hard boat and an armload of gear and carried it to the creek bank. He and Mike discussed the water flow—which was rising fast in the rain—the rapids and flat-water sections, and moments later, I was being instructed on raft safety. “And don’t poke a hole in the raft with the knives or the shotgun,” Mike said, tossing me a flotation vest. I figured the vest might come in handy if I went over while wearing so much steel. I had never weighed my gear, but swimming with it all would be hard. Or impossible.
“Or the pointy boots,” Dave added, with a sly smile. I looked down at my Luccheses.
“Damn, girl.” Mike boomed in his version of a murmur. “You go over and those boots’ll fill up and weigh you down till you drown. What’re you planning to do, paddle or ride a bull?”
