Harvest
Prologue
"Are you sure about this, Mick?"
"No. But I'm going anyway. I can't just leave Coraline in the hands of the Duvall's after everything she's done to help me. You didn't see her face, Josef. She was genuinely terrified."
His jaw tightened as he remembered the way Coraline had trembled just before the stake was pushed into her chest.
"I'd really like to believe she gave me the cure because she was sorry for what she did to me, but.. I just don't trust her. I don't trust any of the Duvall's. Coraline took Beth for a reason. One we don't fully understand. Her capture could just be a ruse to lure me away, so Beth will be alone and vulnerable."
He paused, looking Josef directly in the eye, and said in a low, fierce voice, "I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to her, Josef."
He held Josef's gaze until he was sure the other man understood the depth of his need.
The gentle pop of flames in the fireplace was the only sound in the room until Josef broke the silence.
"The Duvall's are the most well connected, well protected vampires in France, Mick, and they'll be expecting you. You'll need a rock solid cover before you'll be able to get anywhere near them. Ryder can help with some of that, but establishing some genuine bona fides might take months."
"I know." It was said with grim determination. He understood the implication of his decision. "I want her protected at all times while I'm away. I won't be able to do this properly unless I know she's safe."
Mick regarded Josef patiently, awaiting a response to his silent request.
"You're determined to go through with this insanity, then?"
"I am."
After what seemed an age, Josef nodded. When had ever refused a request from Mick? Of course he'd look after the girl. But he had a bad feeling about this, a very bad feeling.
"You're a fool, Mick. There is a diversion here; only it's not the one you think. You're not going after Coraline because you owe her, you're going after her because you're obsessed with her. You're still caught up in the twisted game the two of you have been playing for half a century. You've always been a sucker for a damsel in distress and she's serving it up to you on a silver platter. I'll tell you this, Mick; going after Coraline is a mistake you'll regret. And when you do, don't come crying to me. I'm the one who's going to have to clean up your mess with Beth. So shall ye reap, Mick, so shall ye reap."
**********
"I can't stand it Josef," Beth fumed. "I won't stand One. More. Day of it." She slapped both palms on his desk, leaned forward and glared at him. "Since your gorillas have been 'protecting' me, they've broken my bathroom door - don't ask - held my pizza boy up by the ankles in the hallway, and showed fang to sweet old Mrs Kelly in number four when she tried to slide my mail under the front door!"
Her stilettos dug sharp little points into the carpet as she stalked around his office, her eyes flashing blue fire.
"I've had enough. I don't want to see them, hear them or smell them. I want them out of my face. Gone. Ker-blooey." She turned and flapped her hands at the silent offenders in a shoo-ing motion, "Amscray, vamps."
The two Easter Island statues Josef called bodyguards stood in the corner of his luxurious office, shifting their weight from foot to foot, shoulders slumped, heads bent. He rolled his eyes. They were a disgrace to the tribe. They looked like miscreant schoolboys sent to the principal's office for shooting spit balls in the hallway, and –
Did he just see one of them flinch when Beth pointed right then?
He regarded Beth with fresh admiration. She must really be something if she scared those boys.
Josef watched as Beth took a deep breath, only a temporary eye of the storm he was sure, and mused on the mysterious fact that above a certain decibel level a woman's voice passed beyond the normal hearing range of hearing of most men, even those of the vampire variety.
He tuned out as Beth began to gesticulate, pointing accusingly at the bodyguards, then at him, herself, and back at him again. His eyes followed her agitated pacing from one side of his office to the other as she fumed, her face a fine shade of plum, yes that was it, plum. It had been a long time since anyone had had the gumption to raise their voice toward him like this. It was positively bracing.
"Well," he shrugged non-comittally, when it seemed that she might be out of both breath and ammunition, "I'm only providing the care and attention Mick requested of me Ms Turner. I've promised to - oversee - your wellbeing while he's away. And I don't break my promises, Beth."
He said the last with an edge of steel that let her know that this vampire at least, wasn't going to give in and let her get her own way just because she was pretty and she stamped her feet and demanded it.
Her face darkened and she took a breath, ready to launch into another stinging attack.
"There is, however, one way you could get rid of your little helpers over there…" he interrupted, jerking his thumb toward the corner, his face a picture of innocence.
Beth's eyebrows drew together in a suspicious knot, then shot up in a sharp arc as comprehension dawned. She crossed her arms and lowered her chin, her big blue eyes pinning him to his chair with mutinous defiance. Then she cursed, one brief, percussive utterance, and said with crystal clear enunciation the four words one should seriously consider never saying to a potentially irritated vampire.
"Over my dead body."
**********
The last of Beth's suitcases landed on the bed with a muffled thud and was unpacked with ruthless efficiency by one of Josef's many household staff. He certainly did like to surround himself with beauty. Not even the plain black uniform could disguise the older woman's stunning figure. Wonder what her other household chores included, Beth thought sourly.
"Hey!"
Beth snatched the lacy black thong swinging from the tip of the older woman's index finger.
"Thanks, I can take it from here."
**********
Much to her disgust Beth's days now consisted of being deposited and collected at her workplace by Josef's limousine as if she were a two-year-old at day-care centre.
"It's either that, or the men-mountains squished into the itty bitty back seat of your Prius, Beth. Your choice."
She nearly popped a capped tooth over that one, her teeth had been gritted together so hard.
And that was only the beginning of the tortures involved in staying at Castle Dracula, as she now privately referred to Josef's mansion. The head of Josef's security was positively dysfunctional about her comings and goings, accepting nothing but the exact time she'd be leaving the house, and the exact time she'd be returning, which was sort of a problem, for an investigator with the District Attorney's office. I mean, what does one say to a potential informant?
Sorry, I can't meet you in the basement of the Biltmore Hotel at three am. I have a curfew.
And almost worse than that, all personal visitors and houseguests were banned.
"What is this, .. Stalag 1720?" She yelled, calling the mansion's street address down the hall after the stitched up harridan Josef called a house manager, as yet another request for company was denied.
Accepting limitations gracefully was not one of Beth's strengths. She and Josef barely spoke, or rather, she barely spoke. When they passed in the hallway, which she made sure was rarely, she'd glare and shoot him a tense smile she sincerely hoped he would recognise as being strictly of the duty variety only.
Josef, on the other hand, seemed completely unaffected by her sulks and her pouting. He asked after her comfort, promptly provided her with the equipment and resources she requested, and listened with a polite smile to her litany of complaints. He had been completely, she told Mick during one of his rare calls, at all times the soul of charm and courtesy. The beast!
**********
While her days were a constant torment, her nights were often worse. She slept little, always working a little harder than she had the day before to numb the pain of Mick's absence. In darkness, as she typed her reports for Talbot, only one eye would be on her laptop.
The other, of course, was glued to her cell phone.
She fretted constantly. Not knowing what his case involved, what danger he was in, or where he was staying was agony. But oh, the joy when he rang! The bliss of a long conversation with him, when he was able to snatch a few moments!
"I miss you. When are you coming home?" she'd ask again and again.
"Soon, baby, soon," he'd say.
But the weeks rolled by, and still no Mick.
**********