Chapter 25
Red.
Red flashed in Bastian’s vision.
Red oozing from De Luca’s throat.
Red, roiling rage smoldering through Bastian’s veins.
Rage that only intensified as he saw the pain in De Luca’s face. Eyes on fire. Mouth open in a silent scream as the thing attached to his neck shrieked with pleasure.
Bastian howled as he burst forward and tore the man away from De Luca.
No, not a man.
A vampire.
Right here in the mayor’s house. Feeding on the inspector.
Fury descended like a curtain of hissing steam. Fury that had been denied too long and was desperate to make its terrible mark on the world.
Bastian threw himself at the creature with a cry. They collapsed onto the bed, a tangle of limbs and yells. Bastian used his full weight to pin down the man, and a primal impulse urged him to bury his fangs in the creature’s throat. Tear it out. Paint the walls red. Red like his rage.
But the man was strong. The fresh blood must have given him an edge, because Bastian found himself flipped onto his back, his skull pressed into plush pillows as the vampire bore down on top of him.
Teeth gnashed inches from Bastian’s face. Only Bastian’s hands on the creature’s shoulders kept him at bay. Bastian recoiled as the man’s meaty breath blasted him.
He smelled blood.
De Luca’s blood.
The scent split his focus. Confused the anger. The blood smelled good. Really good.
But it was De Luca’s.
Fresh anger wrenched at his gut. How much damage had the man done? How much of De Luca’s neck had he attacked before Bastian tore him free?
The thought spurred him into action, and suddenly Bastian was on top of the man again, gripping hold of his arms. He wanted to tear him limb from limb for what he had done.
He twisted and pulled, thrilling at the sound of popping joints and snapping sinew, the agonized yowls of the vampire that had fed on De Luca.
The rage in Bastian shuddered with glee and compelled him to keep going.
But Bastian’s grip slipped and the man squirmed free. He sprang from the bed, tumbling across the floor and landing on all fours. He crouched low like a hound from hell, eyes shining. His wrists were circled in red, the skin raw. From restraints? Restraints that he had escaped?
Bastian stared into that gray, sickly face and realized he recognized their attacker.
Despite the dripping fangs, his gaunt face was familiar. It was the man from the picture in the mayor’s office. A gold ring glinted on the vampire’s finger, confirming Bastian’s suspicions.
The mayor’s husband.
The vampire tensed, drool oozing in strings to the floor, and Bastian felt certain he was about to attack again. Bring it on. Anger still flooded his system, desperate to be vented.
But then the creature turned tail and scuttled from the room. The pounding of hands and feet in the hall fell into silence.
Bastian prepared to give chase, but Whitby’s voice broke his focus.
“Press harder,” she said, and through the red haze clouding his vision, Bastian spotted her on the floor by De Luca. The inspector slumped against an armchair, clutching his neck. Blood welled between his fingers.
“I think he bit me,” he murmured as Bastian hurried to his side.
“I will end him,” Bastian growled, his hands curled into claws. “I will bleed him dry and wear his bones—”
A paw swiped his cheek. “Bastian, get a hold of yourself.”
The contact snapped Bastian from the fever. The anger dulled. He wrestled it under control.
“Sorry,” he said.
De Luca was pale. “Am I going to turn?” he asked. “Am I going to be a vampire?”
“No,” Whitby said. “You would have to drink the vampire’s blood for that to happen.”
A flicker of relief in De Luca’s face. But then he gritted his teeth.
“We have to…”
“Try not to talk,” Bastian said. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tore at the arm of the shirt the mayor’s secretary had given him. “My apologies to the mayor,” he said, wrapping the makeshift bandage around De Luca’s throat, pulling it tight to stanch the blood.
The inspector winced but calmed at Bastian’s touch.
Bastian tried not to think about the blood. It shouldn’t call to him—it was De Luca, after all, and he was hurt, badly—but it did, and Bastian felt ashamed of how much he wanted to taste it.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said, focusing on De Luca’s eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. “Once the bleeding stops.”
“Who…” De Luca said.
“I think it was the mayor’s husband.”
“Her husband is a vampire?” Whitby spat. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”
Bastian soothed De Luca’s shoulder. “She said she wanted me to meet him. Maybe she thought we’d have something in common. I suppose we have an idea why she wants L.O.V.E. to be a thing in Vernazza. It’d certainly make it easier for her if vampires were accepted here.”
“Where—” De Luca said, his gaze rolling to the bedroom door, and Bastian understood what he was asking.
“He ran. Or scurried. He’s gone. I think—”
Screams.
Horror-stricken screams came from below their feet.
“The vampire isn’t gone,” Whitby said.
“Downstairs,” De Luca grunted. “Gala.”
Whitby scampered to the door. “We have to help them! There’ll be a massacre!”
“But De Luca,” Bastian said.
“I’m…fine…”
“Yes, you are very fine, but you’re currently hurt, as well.”
“Just help me—” De Luca winced as he used Bastian’s arm to try to pull himself up from the floor, but he was too weak to support himself.
More shrieks echoed up through the floorboards, and Bastian knew he couldn’t waste another moment.
He checked De Luca’s wounds—still bleeding, but less so, more of a trickle now than a flow.
Good thing, because he needed to get De Luca moving.
No way was Bastian leaving him up there alone.
What if the vampire circled back to finish him off?
He put De Luca’s left arm around his shoulder, then slipped his own arm around De Luca’s waist and lifted him up. The inspector weighed so little. Bastian hugged him to his side, and the inspector’s feet swung freely as Bastian crossed the room and went into the hall.
“Strong…” De Luca said.
Bastian clucked with amusement. “You’ve barely eaten a thing all day. A toddler could pick you up.”
Whitby led the way back downstairs, her body low to the floor, tail curled between her legs. The screams grew louder, more frenzied with each passing second, and Bastian shuddered at the knowledge of just how close De Luca had come to death.
The rage pounded in his temples, fainter than before, but still there. It surprised him, that he could still feel anger like it. He had thought he had got a handle on the flare-ups. He tried not to think about the real reason for it. He got angry because De Luca was hurt. That was all.
The main room was in chaos. People ran, tripped, and howled as they attempted to escape the ballroom, eyes panic-glazed, masks slipping.
“Wait here,” Bastian said, leaning De Luca against the ballroom door.
“What are you…”
“No time, love.”
Bastian sped into the ballroom, pushing against the tide of people going in the opposite direction.
He scanned the room for the vampire, seeing only guests scrabbling to get free. Some were even making a bid for freedom through the windows.
Then, as the room cleared, he saw a different kind of movement.
Legs twitched against the polished floor. A person was laid out on their back at the center of the ballroom, a skeletal form hunched over them. The vampire had caught a man.
Bastian heard the ravenous gulping, the slowing of a heartbeat, and he smelled fear. Sweaty, heavy and thick with death.
He seized the vampire’s shirt collar and dragged him away from his victim.
The vampire mewed and struggled, swiping the air with sharp claws.
Bastian refused to let go, but then the shirt tore, and the man was free.
A second later, he was in the chandelier, clinging to the glittering crystal like a spider in a web.
Bastian prepared to launch himself, but then a female voice cried out behind him.
“Signor Emerson!”
He turned to see Mayor Moretti hurrying into the ballroom. She had removed her mask and her face was tight with horror.
“He just needs his tonic,” she said frantically. “He doesn’t want to do this.”
She clasped a familiar green bottle. More olive oil? Bastian remembered the olive grove woman—Kerstin Gronberg—saying that the mayor was a fan of her treatment. She’d failed to mention that it was her husband who was being treated, and not for something so innocent as insomnia.
“He attacked the inspector. And he killed this poor man,” Bastian said, gesturing to the body at his feet.
The mayor looked crestfallen at the sight of the dead man, but there was defiance in her eyes, too.
“It’s not his fault,” she said. “He can control it most of the time. We just have to help him control it.”
Bastian stared at her in disbelief. “Is that what you’ve been trying to do? Is he the one who’s been killing people?”
“No, it wasn’t him, I swear,” she said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as Bastian.
“Did this happen when Luna died? He got free and killed her? Did the same thing happen with Emilio?”
“No,” the mayor insisted.
“He killed them both, didn’t he?” Bastian said. “And you tried to cure his thirst by feeding him olive oil. You must realize how insane that is.”
“He’s my husband!” the mayor shouted. “I would do anything for him! Anything!”
“Including allowing him to commit murder? How many more dead people would it take before you admitted he was a killer?”
“You’re one to talk!” the mayor spat. “As if you haven’t killed.”
He opened his mouth to shout back, but she was right. He was a vampire. But he was one of the lucky few who had figured out a way to live without the need for violence. He knew it didn’t come easily, but he’d made the effort.
“I’m atoning for my crimes,” Bastian said. “Not a single day goes by where I don’t think about the people I hurt before I swore off human blood. But you knew this man was killing the very people you were elected to protect, and you did nothing to stop it.”
The mayor’s eyes shone with tears. It was difficult, being confronted with that kind of truth. Bastian should know.
“Please,” the mayor said, clutching the bottle tight. “You have to help him.”
Her gaze switched to the man hanging from the chandelier. She called to him in Italian. The vampire snarled at her, mouth splashed red, teeth glinting like needles, and seeing that insatiable rage made Bastian realize just how far he’d come in the years since getting clean.
The vampire looked ready to pounce on the mayor, but then suddenly he stilled, as if he’d heard something. Or felt it.
Bastian felt it, too.
A hush, as if the air had suddenly withdrawn from the ballroom.
At the door, De Luca staggered sideways as three shapes slipped past him into the ballroom, gliding like wraiths.
The vampire council. They’d found him.
“Well, well, well,” Jared drawled, casting a surprised gaze around him. “This is quite unexpected, I must admit.”
“Quite,” Emmeline agreed, unspooling the silver chain from her sleeve.
“It was the mayor’s husband!” Whitby cried, remaining by De Luca’s side, her tail wound protectively around his shin. “He’s the killer!”
The council flicked a glance in the cat’s direction, then turned to consider the vampire in the chandelier.
“Who are you?” the mayor asked, tone fearful.
“We are—” Ling began.
“—the vampire council,” Emmeline finished. “This is your husband?”
Mayor Moretti nodded.
“He doesn’t want to kill. He has me lock him up when the thirst grows too much. But sometimes his treatment plan needs amending, and when that happens, his control slips.”
More than slips, Bastian thought. The dead body in the center of the ballroom was impossible to miss.
It suddenly made a kind of sense. The infinity pins that were found at each crime scene…
the mayor must have her own stockpile, given her affiliation with L.O.V.E.
Her husband could have dropped them during the attack.
Careless to do so at two different crime scenes, but Bastian knew what it was like when the blood fever gripped.
Although why the man was carrying infinity pins at all was a question Bastian didn’t have an answer for.
A wheezing sound came from the doors as Commissario Zappa appeared. He was sweating, his eyes bloodshot as they took in the scene, going from the body on the floor, to the mayor, then, finally, Bastian.
“Don’t move, vampire!” he cried. “You have killed your last!”
“Back off, buffoon!” Whitby yowled.
“It appears we have all been mistaken,” Ling murmured, floating by the chandelier.
Zappa frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“The killer—” Emmeline began.
“—is caught,” Jared said.
“Now he will face the consequences for his crimes,” Ling concluded.
“NO!” the mayor cried. “You can’t!”
Bastian seized her arm. “Do you know what the Obliterati do to a town when they’ve rooted out the culprit? They burn it to the ground. We have to convince them that Vernazza is a place worth sparing.”
“I’d rather it burn than let them take him,” the mayor said, and he saw in her eyes the mad look of a person who knew they were about to lose everything. He released her and turned to face the Obliterati.
“This town has suffered enough,” he said. “You have your killer. That is all you need. You will do Vernazza no further harm than it has already endured.”
“We do not take orders—” Jared began.
“—from anybody,” Emmeline finished.
“It’s not an order,” Bastian said, trying to keep his tone level, thinking only about De Luca and all the good he could still do in Vernazza. “Only a request. Please. This town is full of decent people just trying to get by. They have suffered enough. Believe me.”
The council members hovered on the spot, considering him the way a god might inspect a bug.
A scream broke the silence.
The mayor’s husband had leapt from the chandelier, claws outstretched as he flew at Commissario Zappa.
Zappa staggered backward as the vampire went for his neck, but his fangs snapped around thin air because Bastian had seized hold of the creature’s shoulders.
He spun on the spot, tossing the vampire up into the chandelier again.
The light cable trembled. Cracks spidered across the ceiling, and then with an almighty crash, the chandelier came smashing down.
The mayor’s husband was crushed beneath it.
Dust and debris mushroomed through the ballroom, making it almost impossible to see anything.
Luckily, Bastian only needed to see two people, and they were already by the ballroom door.
He hurried to De Luca and took his weight once more. He plucked Whitby from the floor with his other hand. Then he bore them all away from the scene, away from the mayor, the dead body, and the vampire council, out into the night.