Dead Sexy. Amanda Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ no love for murderers, rapists, or child molesters, she couldn’t, in good conscience, condone throwing them to the vamps. She didn’t have to worry for long. In less than a year, the same bleeding-heart liberals who had felt sorry for the poor, misunderstood vampires began feeling sorry for the poor unfortunate criminals who had become their prey, and so a new law had been passed and criminals were again disposed of more humanely, by lethal injection.

      Unfortunately, the new law had left the Undead with no ready food supply. In order to appease their hunger and keep them from killing each other, blood banks had agreed to donate whole blood to the vampire community until synthetic plasma could be developed. In a few months, Locke Pharmaceuticals invented something called Synthetic Type O that was reported to taste and smell the same as the real thing. A variety of blood types soon followed, though Type O remained the most popular.

      Taking a deep breath, Regan shook off thoughts of the past and stared at the lifeless body sprawled at her feet. Apparently, one of the vampires had tired of surviving on Synthetic Type O. She felt a wave of pity for the dead man. In life, he had been a middle-aged man with sandy brown hair and a trim mustache. He might even have been handsome. Now his face was set in a rictus of horror. His heart, throat, and liver had been savagely ripped away, and there wasn’t enough blood left in his body to fill an eyedropper. The corpse had been found under a bush by a couple who had been leaving the Park just before sunset. From the looks of it, the victim had been killed the night before.

      “Hey, Reggie.”

      Regan looked away from the body and into the deep gray eyes of Sergeant Michael Flynn. Flynn was a good cop, honest, hardworking, and straightforward, a rarity in this day and age. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, with a shock of dark red hair and a dimple in his left cheek. She had gone out on a number of dates with Mike in the last few months. He was fun to be with and she enjoyed his company. She knew Mike was eager to take their relationship to the next level, but she wasn’t ready for that, not yet. She cared for him. She admired him. She loved him, but she wasn’t in love with him. It was because he was the best friend she had in the city that she didn’t want to complicate their friendship, or worse, jeopardize it, by going to bed with him. She had seen it happen all too often, a perfectly good friendship ruined when two people decided to sleep together.

      “So,” Flynn said, “definitely a vampire kill, right?”

      “Looks that way,” Regan agreed, but she wasn’t sure. She had seen vampire kills before. The complete lack of blood pointed to a vampire, but the fact that the victim’s heart, throat, and liver had been ripped out disturbed her. She had never known a vampire to take anything but blood from its prey.

      “So, you about through here?” Flynn asked.

      “What? Oh, sure.” She wasn’t a cop and she had no real authority on the scene, but in the past, whenever the department received a call about a suspected vampire killing, they had asked her to come out and take a look. She had been a vampire hunter in those days, and a darn good one, but that had been back in the good old days, before vampires became “protected” and put her out of a job. Fortunately, she had a tidy little inheritance from her grandfather, though it wouldn’t last much longer if she didn’t find another job soon.

      “I’ll call you next week,” Flynn said with a wink.

      Regan nodded, then moved away from the scene so the forensic boys could get to work. It gave her an edgy feeling, being in the park after the sun went down, though she supposed there were enough cops in the area to keep her reasonably safe from the monsters. At any rate, it felt good to be part of a criminal investigation again, good to feel needed. Still, she couldn’t help feeling guilty that she would be out of work in a heartbeat as soon as they caught the killer.

      She remembered the first time the department had requested her expertise. Even now, years later, the thought made her wince with embarrassment. After all the classes she had taken at the Police Academy, she had been convinced she was prepared for anything, but no amount of training could have prepared her for the reality of seeing that first fresh vampire kill. At the Academy, the bodies had been dummies and, while they had been realistic, they hadn’t come close to the real thing. Regan had turned away and covered her mouth, trying in vain to keep her dinner down. It had been Michael who had come to her aid, who had offered her a handkerchief and assured her that it happened to everyone sooner or later. They had been friends from that night forward.

      Now, she stood in the shadows, watching two men wearing masks and gloves slip the body into a black plastic bag for the trip to the morgue while the forensic team tagged and bagged possible evidence from the scene. Maybe they would get lucky downtown, but she didn’t think so. She had a hunch that whoever had perpetrated the crime knew exactly what he was doing and that whatever evidence he had left behind, if any, would be useless.

      Regan watched the ambulance pull away from the curb. Once the body had been thoroughly examined, the medical examiner would take the necessary steps to ensure that the corpse didn’t rise as a new vampire tomorrow night. She didn’t envy him the job, but if there was one thing the city didn’t need, it was another vampire.

      Regan was jotting down a few notes when she felt a shiver run down her spine. Not the “gee, it’s cold outside” kind of shiver but the “you’d better be careful, there’s a monster close by” kind.

      Making a slow turn, she peered into the darkness as every instinct for self-preservation that she possessed screamed a warning.

      If he hadn’t moved, she never would have seen him.

      He emerged from the shadowy darkness on cat-silent feet. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “I mean you no harm.”

      His voice was like thick molasses covered in dark chocolate, so deep and sinfully rich, she could feel herself gaining weight just listening to him speak.

      “Right.” She slipped her hand into the pocket of her jacket, her fingers curling around the trigger of a snub-nosed pistol. She never left home without it. The gun was loaded with five silver bullets that had been dipped in holy water. The hammer rested on an empty chamber. “That’s why you’re sneaking up on me.”

      The corner of his sensual mouth lifted in a lazy half-smile. “If I wanted you dead, my lovely one, you would be dead.”

      Regan believed him. He spoke with the kind of calm assurance that left no room for doubt.

      Joaquin Santiago moved toward her like a sleek black panther on the trail of fresh game. Supernatural power radiated from him like heat from a blast furnace. He was tall and well-muscled, with broad shoulders, strong arms, and long, long legs. In movies, vampires were usually depicted as pale and gaunt, with stringy hair and long fingernails, but there was nothing pale or gaunt about Santiago. His dusky skin and the contours of his face proudly proclaimed his Spanish and Native America heritage. He wore snug black trousers, a black silk shirt, a long black coat reminiscent of the kind cowboys had worn in the Old West, and a pair of supple black leather boots.

      He looked like the angel of death come to call.

      Regan took a deep breath. “Do you know who killed that man?” she asked, pleased when her voice didn’t tremble. Even though she had never met Joaquin Santiago before tonight, she knew who he was. He wasn’t your garden-variety vampire. Before the local Undead had been confined to You Bet Your Life Park, Santiago had been the undisputed master of the city, feared by vampires and humans alike. In person, he more than lived up to the hype that surrounded him.

      “No.” His answer was clipped and final.

      “Well, somebody killed him, and all СКАЧАТЬ