“I’m guessing here, but something tells me you’d find it difficult to rip anyone’s throat out without your fangs,” Caleb said.
That was pretty much the end of the struggling and hissing.
“Now that we have that out of the way, there are a few questions we’d like to ask you,” Sawyer said.
The vampire’s lips curled in a sneer. “Why should I tell you anything? You’re going to kill me when we’re done.”
“Not necessarily.” Jake leaned back in his chair, resting his ankle on the opposite knee. “If you tell us what we need to know, there are other alternatives.”
Sawyer wondered if it would be that easy. But as the vampire’s mouth tightened in scorn, he didn’t think it would be. He looked at Caleb. “Did you find that thing we talked about earlier?”
Caleb reached into the bag once more, taking out a large syringe, needle still covered with a long orange cap. “The medics were a little concerned about why I wanted this and made me promise I wouldn’t do anything illegal with it.”
Sawyer chuckled. Taking the syringe from Caleb, he pulled the cap off the syringe and slipped the needle into the underside of his forearm and pulled back on the plunger, slowly filling the barrel with his blood. He kept going until he’d nearly filled the 10cc syringe, watching out of the corner of his eye as the vampire looked at him nervously…suspiciously.
“What’s that for?” it demanded.
“This?” Sawyer held up the syringe, gently pushing the plunger until a tiny bead of blood bubbled from the tip of the needle, red and glistening. “I guess you could call it an experiment of sorts. I heard this crazy story about how werewolf blood is like acid to a vampire. That sounded a little far-fetched to me, but I thought since you’re here, we’d find out one way or another.”
If vampires could sweat, this one would have been as it stared at the blood on the needle tip, obviously doing its best not to let its fear show.
Sawyer hoped the vampire talked, because the truth was, he wasn’t a fan of torture. Of course, all he had to think about was Maya and that young boy being left to starve in those locked cells or the dead tourists found in the Seine in Paris with their blood drained, and his hesitation faded drastically.
Knowing he had to show the vampire he meant business, he leaned across the table and pushed harder on the plunger until a few drops of blood dribbled out and fell on the back of the thing’s hand where it was strapped to the arm of the chair. When the droplets hit the vampire’s skin, hissing and bubbling exactly like acid, Sawyer realized the American werewolf hadn’t been exaggerating.
The vampire screamed, teeth extending to fill its mouth beyond the point of reason, arms and legs yanking on the steel cables. Out the corner of his eye, Sawyer saw Caleb’s hand inch toward the machete just in case, but the cables held. Within seconds, the thing’s skin stopped bubbling and hissing, the blood doing as much damage as that tiny amount could do. Gasping for air, the vampire eyed the damage—three dime-sized burns that sunk at least a quarter inch into the creature’s flesh. Since vampires didn’t have to breathe regularly, Sawyer wasn’t sure why it was suddenly short of breath. Maybe it was muscle memory or something like that when breathing used to be normal and necessary.
“I guess that answers that question.” Sawyer sat back, still holding on to the syringe. “Now, back to business. Let’s start with something simple. What’s your name?”
The vampire hesitated, glancing back and forth between the syringe and his damaged hand. “Kajus Rebane.”
“See how easy that was?” Jake commented. “How long have you been kidnapping and trafficking supernaturals?”
Kajus flicked a glance at the needle still poised in Sawyer’s hand, then looked at Jake. “Not long. Maybe six months. My nest in Los Angeles was destroyed a while ago and I had to flee. I wandered around for a while before the man running the operation found me. He offered me money and safety. I couldn’t turn them down. I had nowhere else to go.”
Sawyer exchanged looks with Jake and Caleb, sure that neither of them had missed the similarities between the way the vampire and Adriana had been approached. No doubt, the traffickers wanted Adriana to do the same kind of work as Kajus—kidnapping supernaturals.
“If you’ve been collecting supernaturals for that long, you must have quite a collection by now,” Sawyer observed.
“Twenty or so,” the vampire admitted.
Jake looked skeptical. “That’s all?”
Kajus stared down at the skin on his arm as it rapidly continued to heal. “That may not sound like much for six months’ worth of work, but it’s hard to find some of these things. Capturing them can be even harder. Then we still have to make arrangement to transport them. It can be very time-consuming.”
“Must be a real bitch having to work so hard,” Caleb said, his tone so flat you had to work to pick up the sarcasm.
The vampire glowered at Caleb but didn’t respond.
“I have to wonder,” Sawyer said, wanting to keep the vampire talking. “How do you decide which supernaturals get a job offer and which ones get sent straight to the auction?”
For a creature who was basically dead, it was surprisingly easy to read the shock on the vampire’s face at the realization of how much the three of them already knew. Kajus was clearly reassessing whatever lies he’d been planning to tell now that he knew he could get caught in one.
“Someone else made that call,” Kajus said slowly. “I don’t know how the boss made the decision, but in most cases, we knew before we reached the target whether it was a bag and drag or a recruitment effort.”
Sawyer was tempted to ask how Kajus and his crew identified the supernaturals in the first place, but something else the vampire said caught his attention.
“Your boss,” Sawyer murmured, seeing Jake and Caleb perk up immediately. “What’s his name?”
The vampire shook his head, mouth tight, obviously not wanting to answer that. Was Kajus afraid of the guy he worked for?
Kajus opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get the words out, Caleb was up and moving so fast he was practically a blur. Plucking the syringe out of Sawyer’s hand, he buried it in the vampire’s carotid artery before Sawyer even realized what he was doing. Thumb resting lightly on the end of the plunger. Caleb regarded the creature with absolutely no expression on his face.
The vampire froze.
“I know you don’t want to answer those questions because you feel a sense of loyalty to the organization that took you in and the man who hired you,” Caleb said. “Trust me, I completely understand that more than you’ll ever know.” He wiggled the syringe a little, making the vampire wince. “Which is why I’ve taken the necessary steps to help resolve the ethical dilemma you find yourself in. Now, you don’t have to feel bad about answering our questions because you know you had no option. If I push this plunger, the results will be extremely unpleasant.”