Incubus Moon Page 13

  I wailed in agony, expecting it to have been reduced to a mass of jelly and shattered bone, which it soon would be, if I didn’t react quickly.

  I kicked him square in the face with the heel of my bare foot. Blood exploded from his nose and mouth and he released me with a howling yelp. I scrambled onto my hands and knees and delivered a second kick, connecting with the vampire’s chest and sending him hurtling backwards. How the fuck am I doing this?

  Live today. Marvel later.

  My heart was a stampede in my chest as I sprinted down another long corridor and into a wide atrium. A grand stairwell sat at its center, giving access to the floors above and below. Going up or down it meant the possibility of encountering new traps. Best to stay on this current level, I reasoned, and pray that it would lead me to safety.

  The decision was the right one. I’d reached a spacious lounge, where panels of floor-to-ceiling glass spanned the entire width of the room at one end. Freedom and the cover of night lay just a few paces beyond. But halfway there I tripped, the floor pitching beneath me.

  This wasn’t a house at all. I was on a goddamn ship!

  No matter. I lunged for the sliding door handle and pulled back on it. The large panel of glass slid effortlessly to the side and cool, salty air rushed in to fill my lungs. Sprinting onto an open-air deck and toward the metal railing at the stern some thirty feet away, I knew that if I wanted to survive, I was going to have to jump.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Dimitri shouted from the sliding-glass door.

  Only a fool would heed the words of a fairytale monster. So I vaulted over the railing and into the salty night air, wind swirling around me, the sound of churning water thundering in my ears. Then I began to choke.

  The collar of my T-shirt had snagged on something and was serving as a noose. My hands flew up in a violent attempt to break free from whatever I’d become ensnared on, but instead I connected with cool flesh. Dimitri had me by the collar.

  I kicked out frantically to find some toehold just as the cotton material gave way and my body dropped. Air flooded back into my lungs and the tiny pinpoints of light crowding the outer edges of my vision retreated. But I was far from safe.

  The powerful roar of engines and stench of diesel fuel filled my ears and nostrils, while a roiling mass of white foam and whirling propeller blades churned beneath me.

  The vampire gripped me by the waistband of my cargo shorts, the leather belt cutting painfully into my stomach. His hold was the only thing standing between me and certain death.

  “Attempt such an act again, and I shall willingly let you die.”

  To my considerable relief, he hoisted me back over the stern, where I collapsed onto the damp, wooden decking at his feet, coughing up salt and exhaust vapors, but very happy not to have been turned into propeller lubricant. On second thought, those blades might have been a kinder fate than the one he presumably had in store for me.

  “Why didn’t you?” My voice came out raw, bruised.

  “I’ve shown you all the consideration I care to this night.” He seized me by the arm and yanked me up to my feet. “It would be unwise to press for more.”

  With a bloodied chin and shirtfront, Dimitri half-pushed, half-dragged me back to the stateroom. Once there, he shoved me along the corridor, up the three steps to the raised section nearest the bed, and then knocked me to my knees. “Remain here until I come for you. Indulge in another idiotic attempt at escape, and trust that it shall be your last.”

  I clambered to my feet, a fusion of fear, despair, and rising anger causing my body to tremble. “Why are you doing this?”

  He regarded me for a long moment, some of the hostility in his expression diminishing. “Allowing you to live?” I nodded, the first glimmer of hope that he might actually show me some mercy. “Who said anything about that?”

  My body tensed, but I stood my ground. I was prepared to do whatever was necessary to survive.

  “I haven’t quite decided how to do it yet,” he said, shooting me a withering stare. “Perhaps the element of surprise would be more enjoyable, killing you while you slumber.”

  And yet, if Dimitri Ravello truly wanted me dead, he’d have let those propeller blades finish the job for him, or left me a broken mass on the hospital sidewalk.

  He answered my next question before I could voice it.

  “You have been with me for several days now. Unconscious and sick with fever for the better part of them. Your injuries were too severe. I saw no alternative but to…” A storm of emotions played across his face again. “…give you some of my blood.”

  His blood?

  I stared at the opening we’d created in a hailstorm of flying wood and metal and tried not to dwell on the method of delivery of that blood, certain it had had nothing to do with sanitary tubes and bags of plasma and everything to do with sharp teeth, biting, and swallowing.

  More shocking was that Dimitri Ravello had now saved my life on two occasions.

  The Shadow Walker about whom I’d been warned was supposed to be hell bent on my demise, not putting me up in some posh stateroom aboard a mega-yacht.

  Yeah, I reminded myself, but he’s still your judge, jury, and executioner.

  That vampire who’d attacked me in Prague, for surely that’s what he was, had lived up to the warning label, and then some. How had he been able to materialize to me in Las Vegas and so thoroughly infiltrate my mind? If I hadn’t been strong enough (or lucky enough) to push him out of my head at the last minute, I would have hurt or killed that male stripper.

  The flashback sent a cold shiver through me. It also caused my dick to twitch.

  The unexpected idea of wrapping my arms around that beautiful young man’s hard, smooth, naked muscle and draining him dry of every last precious drop of blood was giving me one helluva a hard-on. I could actually envision myself fucking him and drinking him down.

  “Do it!” the voice in my head had whispered to me. “Take it all.”

  Oh, I’d wanted too.

  I began pacing back and forth at the foot of the large bed, focusing all of my energy on burying the memory of that voice. I refused to let that thing back inside me.

  Or, was being pumped full of Dimitri’s blood the cause for this erotic yet disturbing memory? I was certainly a lot physically stronger because of it

  I brought fingertips to my mouth to feel for the set of fangs that were thankfully not there. That was where my relief ended. Whatever Dimitri Ravello’s endgame was it couldn’t bode well for me. Every fiber of my being told me this was true.

  At least one aspect of my imprisonment stood in my favor: The sun would eventually rise and limit Dimitri’s ability to pursue me. I’d use this to my advantage.

  The first order of business, however, was to find a weapon.

  Shame Caulfield’s gun and silver-tipped bullets weren’t lying around. Despite all the drama back at the hospital, I hadn’t missed the fact that silver was evidently akin to vampire kryptonite.

  Poor Caulfield. I’d only just met the woman, and didn’t particularly like her, but I hoped she’d survived our ordeal at the hospital. She might be the one person in this world who could track and find my vampire captor. But she wasn’t here now. I was on my own.

  To my dismay, the closets contained all the fancy but useless items one might expect to find aboard a luxury vessel. Fine clothing and mega-thread-count sheets weren’t going to do the trick. Rummaging through drawers and feeling along upper shelves produced the same worthless results. Luck, evidently, was not on my side.

  Then I tried the last place I could look within the confines of the stateroom.

  The closed door to the left of the enormous bed opened onto an opulent marble and chrome bathroom. A fragment of broken mirror could easily be fashioned into a weapon. It had worked well on that Texan back in Monrovia. But the sound of shattering glass wasn’t what stopped me cold. The image reflected in the mirrors was.

  Captured in the reflective glass was an
eerie replica of myself—hair fuller and blonder, my eyes a striking sapphire, their irises seemingly made up of multiple, glittering facets. My face was devoid of lines and blemishes, and stripping off the remnants of my T-shirt revealed a sculpted, marble-like torso.

  “His blood,” I watched my better-self whisper to me.

  As remarkable as these changes were, they didn’t keep me from noticing the faint seams of rose colored light seeping from behind the heavy silk drapes of the upper suite. I didn’t need a clock to tell me that dawn had arrived, and with it, my chance at escape.

  That same pinkish light tinged the yacht’s walls and furnishings beyond the opening to the stateroom, lending an almost ethereal quality to them. Creeping past a central staircase now, I half expected Dimitri to jump out, fangs bared and primed for attack. Then again, he probably wouldn’t risk coming close to the windows, even in this subdued lighting.

  Truth be told, shy of death by silver bullets and an intense aversion to direct sunlight, I really didn’t know what brought a vampire down. What I did know was that I had to resume my investigation, one deck at a time, until I could figure out where I was and how to get off this floating, luxury prison.

  Large, vertical windows on both the starboard and port sides offered sweeping views of the slate-gray sea beyond, the water tinged pink from the ever-lightening sky catching in its gentle swells. Not a hint of land on the horizon, though. Shit.

  Movement overhead halted my exploration.

  My heartbeat pulsed in my throat and a fine layer of perspiration had broken out across my forehead and upper lip. Was Dimitri up there right now? Were there other vampires on board?

  Because whomever or whatever was moving on the floor above me had several pairs of feet. What I needed to know was: did they have fangs or a more human need to carry weapons for defense, or both?

  I approached the same sliding-glass door used in my botched getaway with caution and peered out at the covered patio. Devoid of movement, a rush of balmy air glided over my skin the instant I slipped outside. Was the deck above like this one or exposed to the elements?

  I’d use the stairwell ahead to find out.

  Taking each tread with care, I paused midway to steal a glance over the deck lip, which was in fact open to the rapidly paling sky. Two waiters hustled to set out crystal, silver, and china at a linen draped table beneath a large umbrella strung with lanterns.

  Vampires eat real food? Dimitri seemed more of a fang-to-jugular kind of guy.

  “Ah, Mr. Iverson,” a commanding voice called down to me.

  From my current position, all I could see of the man was a pair of tanned, muscular calves. The rest of him came handsomely into view upon his descent from within a spiral staircase.

  “Please,” he said with an affable smile, gesturing to the table. “Join me for breakfast. Your host informed me that you might find your way up on deck.”

  I left the shelter of the stairwell thinking, So, my host knew I’d disobey him. This underscored my hunch that Dimitri meant me no real harm. Probably.

  The rumbling in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since… I couldn’t actually remember how long it had been. More importantly, the moment I drew nearer to the man in his crisp, white uniform, I knew that he was human. Not sizzling in the rising sun was my first clue.

  “Loukas Vardoulakis, Captain of the Francesca Adorata.” He extended his hand. “You may call me Louk, if you like.”

  Francesca. Dimitri named his ship after the woman in the portrait. The woman he’d murdered long ago and who now visited me in dreams. The woman who’d called me brother.

  I regarded Vardoulakis’s cordiality with circumspection. The man did, after all, work for my vampire captor.

  A bit shorter than me and ruggedly handsome, he sported military-length brown hair and a substantial build without being stocky. His nose, chin, and jaw were prominent yet proportionate and the man’s olive complexion had been deepened by many hours under the sun.

  “Austin,” I said, accepting his hand. His grip was warm and firm. “Thanks for the offer of breakfast. I’m pretty hungry.”

  Vardoulakis responded with what I took to be a look of compassionate understanding. Perhaps this had more to do with the awkward way in which we’d met. I was dressed in baggy cargo shorts and nothing else.

  He sat down and motioned once again to the chair opposite his own. “Please.”

  From homicidal blood sucker to breakfast with an accommodating Greek captain. Was my day looking up? “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting such nice treatment.”

  The captain watched me sit down and folded large hands on the tabletop. Nodding to the waiters, he regarded me through shrewder eyes now. “I am at your complete service.”

  After breakfast, Vardoulakis bid me good day and withdrew from the table.

  My efforts to use our encounter as a means to pump him for information that might improve my chances for escape were a complete bust. Persuasion was supposed to be my calling card.

  Some incubus I turned out to be!

  Still, I had daylight on my side. I’d use this valuable time to figure out another way off the ship. And if push came to shove, I’d resort to stronger measures. Violence and intimidation might not be in my nature (or were they?), but this was life or death. My life! I had to be clever and, yes, maybe even ruthless if I hoped to survive this ordeal.

  Besides, Vardoulakis worked for the bad guy.

  Of course I ignored his suggestion to retire to the comfort of my stateroom. Like that was going to happen. Not when I had a prison break to make happen.

  I took in a deep breath of sea air and gazed up at the azure sky dotted by fluffy white clouds. The temperature was perfect for being outdoors, a light breeze having kicked up to eliminate all trace of the earlier humidity, its gentle buffets generating little whitecaps that licked across the surface of the deep blue water. The day was idyllic, if this were a pleasure cruise.

  Since it wasn’t, time to get busy and explore the ship.

  I quickly discovered that the radio room and bridge were inaccessible. Unless I broke down the locked doors, which wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  The few times I encountered crewmembers, they treated me as though I were invisible. Perhaps it was protocol not to look at or speak with guests. More than likely, my vampire captor had threatened them with bodily harm if they didn’t steer clear of me.

  Factoring in the captain and the two waiters at breakfast, I’d come upon an additional ten men during my exploration of the Francesca Adorata. Far too many to entertain the notion of escaping unseen, even with my revved-up incubus strength.

  Frustrated but by no means defeated, I slumped onto a teak lounger on the uppermost deck and gave serious consideration to storming the bridge. Steady nerves and a clear head would be paramount, which the bitch of a headache I was nursing might make a little difficult.

  I leaned forward in the chair and rubbed at my throbbing temples. I’d never been troubled by headaches before. Conversely, I’d never suffered a major spinal injury, gotten knocked out of a seven-story building, or been pumped full of vampire blood.

  My life was just filled with new excitement.

  I also couldn’t think of any other way off this damn ship, shy of throwing myself to the sharks. No wonder my head was aching! Even my eyes were extra-sensitive to the bright sunlight. I also felt itchy all over. Maybe I was allergic to something I’d eaten at breakfast?

  On second thought, who cared when two Kawasaki 300LX’s were staring me in the face!

  Hey, if I was strong enough to kick a vampire clear across a stateroom, tossing one of these jet skis overboard to use as an escape vehicle couldn’t be that much more difficult.

  On closer inspection, the sleek watercraft were missing keys. Even if I had access to them, how far would either take me before running out of fuel? There wasn’t a hint of land in any direction. The gravity of my situation was sinking in all the more.

&n
bsp; Commandeering the yacht was my only alternative at this point. I was certainly powerful enough to take on several humans at once. Their bullets were another story.

  Was I really willing to risk getting shot—or worse?

  Descending two outer decks, I played out various scenarios in my mind, but my throbbing head and increasingly itchy skin were making it difficult to concentrate.

  A sudden rush of bile forced me to the rail below and in front of the pilothouse. I leaned over it, on the verge of losing my breakfast, which the wind would push back into my face. But this was of little concern, because I was going to pass out first.

  A door flew open to the right of the wall of dark glass curving around the pilothouse. Vardoulakis rushed through it waving his arms and yelling at me, but I couldn’t hear him over the screams. My screams.

  CHAPTER 22

  Whatever Vardoulakis was shouting to his men, I prayed it was Greek for shoot me, because a ball of flames had engulfed my entire body!

  Struck hard from behind, I toppled overboard and into the ocean which quickly swallowed the incinerating heat. Cool, salty water found its way into every cracked and ruined bit of flesh, this new torture only compounded by the rough hands grappling with and tugging me further down and away from the surface.

  I could have fought back. Instead, I welcomed death into my mouth and lungs, praying for its darkness to press in from the corners of my eyes and release me.

  Dimitri must have planned it this way all along. He’d had Vardoulakis’ men set me on fire and drown me. A monster would enjoy causing the most pain and horror possible.

  No matter. Laura, my dead mother, was floating in front of me with outstretched arms, a poignant expression on her face in the muted shafts of light filtering down to form a silver- cerulean aura around her. My nightmare was finally over.

  “Intriguing,” a woman said from within a dense miasma, “and rare amongst the human animals. Are you certain he serves as a true conduit for the dead?”