Chapter 8 #3
Rafe stared at Edgar for a second, at his outstretched hands that weren’t touching Rafe just yet.
From the corner of his eye, he could see that Lola had left her spot on the wall and was now close enough to grab Edgar before he could lay one finger on Rafe.
Holding up one hand, Rafe kept Lola at bay.
Edgar wasn’t a danger to him. Just a little excited and desperate.
“She doesn’t know you’re…”
“No.” Edgar shuddered and stepped back. He seemed to sink in on himself. His thin shoulder drew in and his body shrank in stature as he dropped on the pallet. “No, my family thinks I died years ago.”
The hazy picture of Edgar was becoming frighteningly clear.
He’d likely been a married man with children when he’d been snatched up and turned into a vampire.
Changed into a monster, he knew he couldn’t go home again, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t watch silently from a distance as each generation was born, grew up, and died.
It was very clear why he refused to move from Hartford, why he stayed hidden. He wanted to remain close to his family, where he could help and protect them.
“My lawyers will arrange it. They’ll make it look like she’s won a scholarship.”
Edgar released a heavy breath and nodded. “Yes. Good. Thank you.”
“But you’ve got to give me something worth thousands of dollars,” Rafe warned.
Edgar licked his lips, his eyes darting briefly around the room as if he was searching for secrets to share. “Th-the Arsenault clan arrived at roughly the same time as the Variks. I haven’t heard much about them. Barely even whispers. They mostly keep to themselves.”
“Mostly? Who have they been seen with?”
“You. One of the Arsenaults has been seen with you,” Edgar quickly replied.
He flashed Rafe a smile, but it faded when Rafe didn’t return it.
“The MacPherson clan. They’re the other clan in town.
They’ve been here for a bit. Six, seven years.
But then, they’ve got branches everywhere along the East Coast.”
“What do you mean they’ve got branches?” Lola snapped. She stepped up so that she was now standing right beside Rafe as she loomed over Edgar. The vampire shrank back even farther, his nervous eyes jumping over to Rafe, but he wasn’t going to save him. Rafe had the same question as Lola.
“Branches. Subsects. The MacPherson clan is huge. Too big to have them all in one city, so they have to spread out. Hartford is the center of the clan with the clan leader. A vampire called Nolan.”
“Any other clans?” Rafe asked. He’d known the clan was large, but the idea of them being spread out across the country was horrific.
“Moon and Novik clans are here as well. Novik is small. Fewer than a dozen of them. Been here about a year. Moon showed up a couple of weeks ago. I don’t think there are a lot of them. Too soon to see if they plan to be troublemakers.”
Lola frowned and looked over at Rafe. He could practically read her thoughts without her saying a word.
“Are there normally so many clans in town?”
“No, Hartford is fucking crawling with vampires right now. On top of the clans, you’ve got all the clanless running around too. You can’t hunt without tripping over a bloodsucker. Moon and Novik seem to be staying on the outskirts of town. Leaving the city center to the Variks and MacPhersons.”
Rafe almost corrected him, adding that the Arsenaults were also inside the city, but he swallowed back the words. If Edgar didn’t mention the Arsenaults, he might not know where they were settled.
“Why the hell is everyone in Hartford?” Rafe looked over at Lola, and she even seemed as lost as Rafe. “It wasn’t this bad when we spent that time in Chicago.”
Edgar snorted. “Seriously?”
Rafe nearly growled when he glared down at Edgar. “Yes, seriously.”
“Everyone is following the Variks!” Edgar could barely hide the laugh from his voice.
“You slaughtered the Black Wolf clan! The Black Wolf clan. They were the most dangerous, ruthless clan out there. The Variks crushed the leader and sent the surviving members packing. Tails between their fucking legs. Everyone is saying that the Variks are the ones behind the Ministry murders. We’re all watching to see what you do next.
” Edgar frowned, losing some of his enthusiasm. “Or you’re a MacPherson.”
“And the MacPhersons are feeling threatened by the Variks,” Lola grumbled.
“Not that a single damn one of them would admit that,” Edgar added.
Lola grunted. “Got anything else?”
Edgar shook his head. “I’d say Novik and Moon are going to keep to themselves. And unless you’re striking some deal or holding something over them, I’d wager the Arsenaults are going to sneak away at the first opportunity. The only ones worth worrying about are the MacPhersons.”
Rafe stared at the vampire for a moment. The latest gossip definitely gave him something to think about. But right now, it wasn’t helping his current dilemma with the missing Piper Arsenault.
“Have you heard anything about a vampire disappearing from her clan?”
Edgar seemed to be taken back by the question. Lines formed between his thin eyebrows as they drew together over his long nose. “Murdered?”
“I’m thinking more along the lines of a runaway.”
Edgar chewed on his bottom lip for a moment and slowly shook his head. “No, nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised with the MacPhersons, but they’d be hunting that poor fucker down like a dog. There’s no getting out of that clan.”
Rafe nodded. Philippe had been confident Piper didn’t run away, but he felt compelled to at least check. It was best if they eliminated all options. “This has been useful, but I may need more information.”
“I figured as much,” Edgar muttered.
“Keep your ears open for my little runaway.”
“Which clan?”
Rafe smiled slowly. “Any of them. It could be useful.”
“Got it.”
“Get your great-granddaughter’s info to Lola. I’ll keep my end of our bargain. She won’t pay a cent for college.”
Edgar swallowed hard and nodded several times. He lowered his head, but not before he caught the glint of unshed tears in his eyes. Clenching his teeth, Rafe turned and left the ragged apartment. The clomp of Lola’s heels followed him, his avenging shadow back in place.
He didn’t draw in a cleansing breath until he was outside of the apartment building and on the street.
The air wasn’t as refreshing as he would have liked, but it was away from Edgar’s despair and desperation.
The cost of the information was more than he would have liked, but definitely not as much of a potential danger to his clan as it could have been.
And it didn’t hurt that Edgar would continue to feel grateful for quite a while and would be a diligent source of information over the next several years.
“I don’t like it,” Lola snarled when they were alone.
“What? That the Variks have become some cheap reality TV show for vampires?” Rafe placed his fingers against his lips and lifted his voice to a painfully high falsetto. “Dear God, what will those crazy Variks do next?”
Lola’s clomp was turning more into an angry stomp as they walked down the sidewalk toward Rafe’s car. “The MacPhersons are just the type of clan to see it as a challenge. A threat to their power.”
Rafe dropped his hand to his side and gave a shrug of one shoulder. “We’re not picking any fights with the MacPhersons.”
“You didn’t exactly pick a fight with the Black Wolf clan, either.”
Lola had some very good points, but he couldn’t worry about clan infighting and political power struggles. That was the business of Marcus and, to some extent, Winter. He’d pass the info along to his brothers. For now, his main concern was Piper Arsenault.
His relief was sharp as they drew close to the BMW and found it untouched. The exquisite vehicle shone in the dim streetlights, a beacon beckoning him back to Blush. A world he knew.
Reaching into his pocket, he thumbed the button on the key fob and unlocked the doors. Lola stood next to the passenger door while he walked around the front to the driver’s side. She stared at him over the roof, still frowning.
“We need to add more security to Blush. Tighten up the restrictions on the number of vampires allowed inside at a time,” Lola murmured. Rafe was pretty sure she was talking more to herself than him.
Rafe stopped next to his door and smirked at his companion. “There’s no need to panic and start battening down the hatches. The MacPherson clan or any of the other clans might think we’ve got reason to be worried about an attack.”
Lola looked as if she wanted to argue, but her eyes widened suddenly as she stared past Rafe’s shoulder.
Before she could catch her breath to shout a warning, Rafe felt it.
The same muted flicker of awareness he’d felt when he was outside the nursing home with Philippe.
He could sense a vampire so damn close, but it was faint and wavy, like the fucker had found a way to mask himself.
Reaching under his leather jacket, Rafe wrapped his fingers around the handle of the long knife strapped to his back. He pulled it free while pivoting on the balls of his feet. Ducking low, he felt the wind riffle his hair. The vampire was overextended, the shiny blade missing him completely.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to stop, both Rafe and the attacker frozen.
Their eyes met. The attacker’s were wide with horror as he realized his mistake.
Rafe’s were narrowed with a dark glee. The vampire tried to recover from where he’d overbalanced, but he was too slow.
Rafe whipped his blade around and shoved it up through the bottom of his jaw, plunging it straight through his brain.
As he stood, he ripped the blade free. The vampire staggered backward two wobbly, unsteady steps.
With a snarl, Rafe swiped the blade, cleanly slicing through his attacker’s neck.
The body collapsed to the left while the head bounced off the pavement a couple of times and rolled away toward the right.
Lola raced around the car and stopped in front of him, a blade ready in her hand as she waited for another attacker.
But no one appeared. Nothing moved. But there was a low flicker of vampire power for a second, and then it disappeared.
There had been another vampire besides the attacker, but they were gone now.
“Do you recognize him?” Rafe demanded.
Slowly, Lola relaxed, lowering her blade to her side. She walked over to the head and picked it up by its short brown hair. “Nope. Don’t think I’ve seen him before.”
“Don’t suppose his clan had him tagged,” Rafe muttered.
He frowned at the body, wishing it would somehow spill more than just blood on the road.
The strange, masked power left him thinking these people were the same as the shooter, but he still couldn’t be sure if this had to do with the Arsenault investigation or the Varik political turmoil.
“I’ll call the cleaners,” Lola offered, dropping the head next to the corpse.
Rafe nodded. “Stay and wait for them. See if they can identify him or if he was part of a clan. I’ll go to Blush.
” He wanted to personally keep an eye on things there.
It would give him a chance to take a closer look at who was passing through his club.
He could also spend a little time thinking about the two attacks as well as the information they’d gotten from Edgar. “I’ll send Ryder for you in my car.”
“Don’t bother. I can find my own way.” Rafe lifted one questioning eyebrow at her and she waved him off. “You need him watching your back.”
For once, Rafe didn’t argue with her. Two attempts on his life in a short period of time was serious. He needed to get to the bottom of it, and he had a feeling that a big part of that was going to be solving Philippe’s problem.