"A guest?" the clerk asked.
Crichton smiled and shook his head. "You will inform me if hunters show up here."
"Yes, sir."
"You won't recall that I was asking about the hunters."
"Yes, sir."
"You will answer only to me, Crichton."
"Yes, sir."
Crichton nodded and vanished, returning to the condo briefly, wondering where the vampires had been hit before they reached the hotel. Alex, the vampire he'd sent to check out Cameron's house, reported back, thankfully. "There's not a soul here, Crichton."
"Okay, check the other home and continue to report in to me. Don't walk there, just vanish and reappear there." Crichton had to remind the newly turned vampires about keeping a low profile. They were so used to not having the vampire abilities, they had to be retrained. He went to one of the houses where some of the vampires were hanging out that were not the Cameron family homes and found another bash dying down. Good. He was afraid Alex and he were the only two of them left.
One of the ancients greeted him with a slight bow, but so slight as not to really be acknowledging Crichton was in charge. Crichton wondered if anyone had witnessed him killing Rutherford. Maybe that was why he was having so much difficulty with the newly turned ones. And even the ancients might feel he could turn on them at any moment. He would too, if he thought they were conspiring against him.
"Have you seen any hunters about?" he asked one of the ancients, a white-haired, former duke in England, who had been turned into one of his kind by the Black Death. The man had always had airs while Crichton had been a goat herder, so he assumed some of the ancients who were of the aristocracy looked down their noses at him. Rutherford had also been a duke, which was the reason some of the ancients had followed him into this battle.
"I haven't seen any. You think there are more than just one or two?" Whitefoot asked.
"Yeah, I think so. We...I can't track down some of the vampires who attended two bashes, nor the ones headed to the hotel where one of the vampires said he thought he'd seen a hunter go inside. Three were at the airport that went missing also."
"Hmm."
"Dennison was checking on Cameron's house and I lost contact with him."
"Hmm." The vampire glanced over at a host who smiled at him, willing him in her own way to feast. Not all humans were totally helpless.
Crichton should have expected the vampire’s disinterest.
The ancient suddenly turned to look at him and cast him a sinister smile. "I have heard Rutherford still lives."
Crichton's heart nearly quit beating. If Rutherford lived, Crichton was a dead man. But if he lived, why hadn't Rutherford already made short work of him? Or he could have sent any of his minions, or even his ancient friends to do the job. He didn't know all of them, but someone like Whitefoot who had aristocratic ties to Rutherford would definitely back him if he learned Crichton had killed him, or...tried to kill him.
Crichton had to learn the truth. But how? Then he thought of the vampires Rutherford had turned. They must have heard from him, but he had to be so weak, he wasn't giving them orders to kill Crichton. He fought running his hand through his hair, making him look even more guilty than he already felt. "That would be good news." Yet Crichton had taken way too long to say so. He was in trouble now.
As long as they had all lived, they would notice things like that.
“I agree.”
“So the men he turned…”
“Some say they have heard from him.”
They couldn’t have. Unless…unless Rutherford was waiting for the hunters to kill Crichton. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
“Have you tried contacting him?” Crichton asked.
“I have. Maybe if you tried, he’d communicate with you,” Whitefoot said, his head swiveling around again to look at the female host.
Oh, yeah, like how Rutherford would want to wipe Crichton off the face of the earth if he heard from him. “I’ll do that.” Not.
Crichton had to discover Rutherford’s location and destroy him while he was in a weakened condition.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t think you liked coming to bashes. You prefer to feed in the privacy of your own quarters,” Whitefoot said.
Crichton couldn’t reach any of the ancients, that’s why. None of them responded to his queries. Not even Whitefoot and he knew damn well Crichton had tried to get in touch with him. Crichton didn’t know enough of the newly turned vampires by name to get hold of them. Only Alex because Rutherford had made it a point to tell Crichton he was his favorite newly turned vampire.
That was it! If anyone would know that Rutherford was alive for certain, it would be Alex.
“I was concerned that so many of our brethren seemed to be out of contact. I thought I’d better check into it myself.”
Whitefoot gave him a small, conceited smile.
This was proving to be a disaster. Crichton thought he’d planned it out so well. He could still see the scene in his mind’s eye. The hunter attempting to kill Rutherford and Crichton leaping forward to help him before he stabbed the hunter in the heart. Then Crichton was fighting another hunter and before he was overwhelmed, he managed to kill the hunter. After that, Crichton had conveniently slipped out of the battle and waited in a closet of the master bedroom to ensure he wasn’t killed in the fight for dominance until he heard one of the vampires ask telepathically, “Where’s Crichton?”
And he slipped back into the battle just like that with no one the wiser.
“Are you returning to your condo? Before you know it, it will be too late,” Whitefoot said.
Crichton thought he heard a threat in Whitefoot’s comment. “I will see you at dusk.” He left the bash, truly surprised he’d find anyone still alive, and returned to the safety of his condo. He needed a host and some converts. He needed to rest. All this worrying about what was going on with the hunters and vampires was wearying. Worse, this business with Rutherford was problematic, something he had to deal with soon.
“Alex, what have you learned?” he asked telepathically.
Alex didn’t respond.
Chapter 15
Later that morning, Pasha woke to being wrapped in Zachary’s arms still, surprised a little that he had wanted to keep her close all night long. "I want you to know I'm there for you, Zachary, as much as my brother and sister are."
"Thanks. I feel the same way about you. We don't know where this will take us, but we can get through it if we just work together. No undue heroics though."
"As if you aren't the one to take off and do your own thing without proper backup."
"I could say the same about you.” He sighed. “On another topic, Rachael told me about an online group that they started up to deal with these issues. It's for those who have been turned and those who are friends and family of hunters turned. We would meet together to discuss issues, but also we would have separate sessions for those who needed to deal with sensitive issues on their own."
"I...I think that's great." She was amazed at how they wanted to stick together, and she hoped it wouldn’t cause dissension among the hunters not affiliated with this mix of hunters and vampires living together in harmony with one goal: getting rid of the rogues. It made sense. She’d heard that Daemon was all for policing his own vampires who had gone rogue, but now that he had mated a huntress, the situation had changed to a degree. She wondered if the hunter population in Portland went along with it though.