Dark Fire by Christine Feehan. Dark Series – book 6

“That’s your trouble, Cullen-no sense of commitment. This is war. It’s us against them. Do you believe they exist? With all the proof I’ve given you, do you really not believe?” Brady demanded. “After what you saw with your own eyes? Or was that just a tale to get you inside our group?”

“Hell, yes, I believe vampires exist,” Cullen said. “But not this singer. She’s just some woman with a beautiful voice and a bodyguard as lethal as anything I’ve ever seen. So she sleeps during the day. What do you expect? She works all night. So we can’t find their campsites even when we track them all the time. They’re very careful, very private. But no one ever dies. No kids are killed. They never leave a trail of drained carcasses behind. If they’re vampires feeding off people, where are the bodies? Every vampire I’ve heard about kills. The reason we can’t find these people when they camp is because their bodyguard is good. That’s why there are no pictures, not because we can’t get anybody on film. This guy does his job and does it well. Thus, no unauthorized pictures.”

“And the leopards?” Brady demanded.

“Part of the show, the mystique. They’re in show business, Brady. Everyone has some kind of gimmick. They like leopards. Big deal. Vampires like wolves and bats Isn’t that what we’ve been told?” Cullen drove his point home.

The man nearest Cullen cleared his throat. He was little older than the others and generally very quiet. “I is possible Cullen is right in this case, Brady,” he said softly. “There is no evidence that any in this group were ever in the Carpathian Mountains or even originate from that area.”

“Wallace,” Brady protested, “I know I’m right about this singer. I know I am.”

The older man shook his head. “It doesn’t add up Vampires seem to have some sort of thing about their women. Possessing them completely. Yet this singer recently paired up with someone from the outside world.

“You prove my point,” Brady said triumphantly. “She hooked up with Julian Savage. He is from the region long suspected of producing vampires. And he’s been under suspicion for a long time. Suddenly he shows up and he and the singer fall in love? It seems too big of a coincidence to me.” Brady let that sink in, knowing he had made his point. Julian Savage was definitely high on the list of the society’s suspects and had been for! very long time, though he had eluded their hunters at every turn.

There was a short silence. Everyone was looking to the older, soft-spoken man, William Wallace. He had been a member of the vampire-hunting society for more years than any of the others. He had lost family members to vampires. He had hunted them in Europe, and when he spoke, everyone, including Brady, did what he said.

“It is true,” Wallace mused softly, “that wherever Julian Savage goes, death follows, yet he is never under suspicion by the police. He had a home in the French

Quarter in New Orleans, and several members of our society vanished there, never to be found. We could not prove he was in residence at the time-it appeared he had sold his family home-but even vampires can falsely generate the proper paperwork and credentials. He travels often from country to country, a very wealthy man,” Wallace continued. “Now he travels around this country with a group of singers. It is indeed suspicious.” He leaned over to look at the photograph. “You’re certain this was taken at the same place where Brodrick died?”

Brady nodded. “I personally inspected the site. It’s the same, all right. Matt took a series of photos of this woman.”

“Have you ever seen her before?” Wallace asked.

Everyone shook his head. “Matt didn’t have a girlfriend, either,” a pimply-faced youngster volunteered. He was the most recent inductee to the society and wanted to be noticed, to prove himself. “So if he did recently meet a woman and take all these pictures in the area where the Troubudous were rumored to be camping, she would have to have some connection to the group.”