Cursed Read online

  He was silent but his shoulders were tight. She could tell by the tension in his big body he was thinking of running.

  “Don’t do it.” Charlie poked him in the ribs again with the muzzle of her Glock. “My daddy taught me to hunt when I was twelve. Used to take me out to spend the night in the deer blind, waiting for some buck to wander by. And let me tell you, buddy, you’re a hell of a lot bigger target than a lot of the game I brought down.”

  Some of the tension leaked out of the big form and the Kindred continued plodding towards her car.

  “Besides,” Charlie continued. “You’d never get those cuffs off by yourself. They’re pretty tight, aren’t they? No way to drive a car or a space ship with those on. And after a while, blood loss and nerve damage set in. Better stay with the person who has the key.” She patted her pocket with her free hand, making her keys jingle. “Right?”

  “You make a compelling argument,” he rumbled. “But I still do not see why you have to apprehend me. Despite the fact that our people are at war, I am not your enemy.”

  “Oh no? Then what were you doing skulking around at night like a skunk in the garden?” Charlie demanded. “Just out playing vigilante, making sure nobody got raped or stabbed behind the bar for the hell of it?”

  “I did not set out to interfere,” he protested. “But I couldn’t stand by while the female was attacked. I was actually trying to get—”

  “Trying to get where?” Charlie poked him again. “Go on—you can say it.

  You were trying to get to the HKR building and contact the Mother Ship, weren’t you?”

  “They have an urgent message for me,” he growled reluctantly. “If I could just speak to my superior—”

  “He’d what—give you instructions on where to plant a bomb or how to sabotage the local military base?”

  “Of course not.” He was sounding exasperated again. “Give my people some credit. We are not terrorists—we are honorable males. No Kindred would do such a thing.”

  “I don’t know what you’d do and I’m not about to give you a chance to find out.”

  They had reached the car at last and Charlie was grateful. She’d had about enough conversation with the big warrior. It was time to bring him in to the EPB headquarters—which was actually just a makeshift area inside the local precinct—for processing.

  She had to stand on tiptoes to get her fingers on the top of his head and fold him down into the back seat of her unmarked sedan. Folding was the right word, too—the big bastard was accordioned in like a piece of origami by the time she finally got him into the back but finally the deed was done and she was able to shut the door.

  Then, leaning against the side of the closed driver’s side door, she got out her cell and called her immediate superior, Agent Purvis. He answered on the tenth ring.

  “Damn it, Sayers, do you know what time it is?” he muttered sleepily into the phone.

  “One fifteen AM exactly,” Charlie answered crisply. “I wouldn’t bother you at this hour without a good reason, Sir. My suspicion that a Kindred was in hiding somewhere in the vicinity of Old Pevito Road was correct. I have caught and apprehended the suspect and he is currently in custody in the back of my car.”

  “What?” There was a flurry of sounds on the other side and Charlie pictured Agent Purvis sitting up suddenly in bed and knocking his balding head against the headboard. “You what?” he demanded.

  Charlie repeated herself.

  “By yourself?” Purvis demanded. “You went after a Kindred by yourself? Where’s Jenkins? He’d better be with you, Sayers!”

  Charlie cleared her throat. “Jenkins went home at the end of our shift. I wasn’t intending to apprehend the suspect on my own but when I saw him, I followed him. He wound up engaged in a fight outside of the bar Bad Decisions, off of Curlew and I had no choice but to take him down.”

  “He was in a fight? Great, just great!” Purvis snapped. “It’ll be all over the news by morning! Hell, it’ll be all over the news in an hour if the wrong person gets hold of it. And they’re going to twist it too—make it look like we were too late to stop him attacking ordinary citizens.”

  “How it looks in the news wasn’t my prime consideration when I arrested him, Sir,” Charlie said stolidly. Purvis with his constant attention to the media and concern about his personal image bugged the hell out of her. Sometimes it seemed he was more interested in preening for the cameras than doing his job. “I was more interested in making sure no one was hurt,” she continued. “Should I bring the Kindred suspect in to headquarters for processing?”

  “Into headquarters—you mean at the PD? No—no, of course not!,” Purvis sputtered. “Why the hell would you do that? The media vultures would be on us even quicker.”

  “Well what am I supposed to do with him?” Charlie demanded, thoroughly pissed off. “Just let him go? We’re the EPB for God’s sake—taking down any remaining Kindred is our job. Or so you told me when you recruited me!”

  “Take him to a safe house,” Purvis said quickly. “You do have safe houses here in Ashville, right?” Purvis was from the DC area and had come to town to start the Asheville branch of the EPB so he wasn’t familiar with the area. Still, his question struck Charlie as more than a little asinine.

  “No Sir, we do not have a safe house set up and just waiting for anyone who needs to use it,” she said acidly. “It’s the Asheville PD, not the Witness Protection Agency.”

  “Well you can’t take him to the precinct.” Purvis was sounding belligerent now.

  “I can’t leave him cuffed in the back of my car all night either,” Charlie countered. “He’s got to go somewhere secure.”

  “Somewhere secure…somewhere secure…” There was a clicking sound at the other end of the phone and this time Charlie pictured Purvis tapping a plastic Bic pen cap against his yellowing top teeth. It was an annoying and slightly disgusting habit he had while thinking—if what went on in his balding head could be called thinking, that was.

  Not for the first time she wondered why she’d allowed herself to be recruited away from the PD for this job. She had just made detective—one of the youngest in the Asheville PD history—and she’d had her own office and everything.

  But Purvis hadn’t seemed like nearly such an idiot when he came rolling into town with his presidential mandate and his plans to protect their country and world from the evils of the Kindred. He’d told Charlie that they needed people like her—people who had grown up here and already knew the lay of the land. After all, it’s the hound that knows the hills it’s hunting that catches the most game.

  Everything he’d said had seemed to make sense at the time. Charlie had allowed her patriotism to overcome her common sense and had quit the PD to become Charlotte Sayers EPB, Agent First Class. Of course, it wasn’t just patriotism that lured her in—it was the way she felt about the Kindred and their draft. No female ought to be forced into a sexual relationship against her will. After what had happened to Missy— But Charlie shut down that line of thought fast. It wouldn’t do to get emotional right now.

  “…kids?”

  “Excuse me, what?” She realized that she’d missed what Purvis was saying.

  “I said, do you have kids?”

  “No,” she said, wondering why he was asking. “I don’t.”

  “Or anyone else who might be put at risk?” he went on. “In your house, I mean?”

  Charlie began to see where this was headed. But surely not even Purvis would suggest what she thought he was suggesting.

  “No, Sir, I live alone. But—”

  “Excellent. Take the prisoner to your place.”

  “What?” Charlie demanded. “Sir, you can’t be serious! It’s against protocol—all kinds of protocols—for me to take him back to my personal living space and guard him by myself.”

  “Well you apprehended him by yourself, Sayers,” Purvis reminded her nastily. “And you seemed to have managed that just fine.”

  “