BodySnatchers Read online

  “That wasn’t our fault. She had help,” Cesar said.

  “Another reason the boss was pissed.”

  “Hey, that guy nearly broke my arm!”

  “He let you live.”

  “Barely,” Cesar muttered. “What did the boss say?”

  “Nothing. Come on. We have work to do before the boss gets here tonight.”

  The men left the room, their footsteps carrying them away from the crate room and Reggie.

  For the first time in the past few minutes, she breathed. When she thought the coast was clear, she jumped to her feet and pulled the white blankets aside one at a time. Beneath each was a woman laid out in what looked like makeshift coffin-like structures lined with rich-colored fabrics. Velvet, satin, taffeta—no expense spared to outfit and present the merchandise. Reggie’s stomach rebelled, and she fought the urge to throw up. All were young and beautiful and in a deep sleep.

  When she reached the last one that stood closest to the entrance, her hand shook as she yanked the blanket aside.

  There, nestled in white satin sheeting was her sister with the flaming auburn hair. She wore a black lace skirt and an old-fashioned black corset, cinched tightly to emphasize her already generous bustline.

  “Madison,” Reggie whispered into her ear. She couldn’t breathe until she felt the beat of her sister’s pulse. Then she patted Madison’s cheek. “Wake up, Madison. Wake up.” She increased the sharpness of her slap until realization sank in. No matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t waking her sister. Whatever “the boss” had done had all these women in a deep trance.

  Reggie stood staring around the room. How could she get Madison and all the rest of the women out? They were like dead weight. Even if she could carry her sister, she couldn’t get past all the men out front. And if she did, what would happen to the rest of the women? If these people knew they’d been discovered, they’d leave and take all the evidence with them.

  Much as she hated doing it, she had to leave Madison and go get help. Lots of help.

  Making a quick pass around the room, she put the blankets back the way she’d found them. Then dropping a kiss on her sister’s cheeks, she whispered, “I’ll be back.”

  Chapter Six

  The sense that Reggie was in trouble forced Yuri to do something he hadn’t done in a long time—venture out during the daytime.

  If the clouds weren’t covering the sun’s deadly rays, he wouldn’t even attempt going out until dark. As was typical of Houston, clouds came in from the Gulf, sometimes lingering all day and night. The weatherman had predicted cloudy skies until close to midnight.

  “I’m not feeling good about this,” Torsten said, shoving an arm into the long, lightweight overcoat with the high collar.

  Yuri pulled gloves onto his hands and adjusted the collar of his black trench coat upward to protect the back of his neck. “Being a vampire can be a pain.”

  “But we live forever,” Torsten countered.

  “If we aren’t staked in the heart by well-intentioned citizens, fried in the daylight or otherwise dusted.”

  Torsten stopped halfway into his coat and stared at Yuri. “Tell me again why the hell we’re going out?”

  “We have to stop Andrei.”

  “Uh-huh. Andrei. Right.” The expressive lift of Torsten’s eyebrows conveyed a lot more than the sarcasm in his words. “I’m thinking it’s one redhead that’s got you all excited.”

  “I’m going out for one thing and one thing only—to bring Andrei down.”

  “And if you get a little taste of red, you’ll be all that much happier?”

  “Quit teasing him, Tor.” Melisande emerged from Yuri’s room carrying two broad-brimmed hats like the gangsters wore in the early nineteen hundreds. “Wear these.”

  “You don’t think we’ll stand out with those?”

  “No more than you’ll stand out with the black trench coats on a hot and humid day in Houston. Just tell them you’re going to a Matrix convention if anyone asks.”

  “By the way, where are we going?” Torsten stood at the door, settling the hat at a jaunty angle on his long white hair.

  “PIA headquarters.” Yuri stepped past the slack-jawed Norseman and strode down the hall. A small smile quirked his lips upward.

  The drive to PIA headquarters was nothing less than hair-raising. Daytime traffic in Houston was worse than anything Paris at night had ever been.

  “Tell me again why we’re going to PIA headquarters? Do you have a death wish or what?” Torsten gripped the armrest of the HUMMV hard enough to leave permanent grooves in the leather.

  “That’s who Reggie works for, and I think they may prove of assistance in our quest to find and eliminate Andrei and his band of Dragóns.” He swerved around a car and zipped off the exit ramp leading to the collection of high-rise office buildings of downtown Houston.

  “This idea doesn’t make sense, Yuri. You know how the PIA works—kill the monster now and ask questions later.”

  “They won’t harm us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  No, he wasn’t. But by showing up in the daytime, he might get past the front desk without them really knowing what they were. “Just remember to remove the coat, hat and gloves before we get to the front desk.”

  “Great.” Torsten leaned his head back, his sunglasses pointing to the ceiling. “I’m riding with a lunatic to a destination no sane vampire would walk into without a submachine gun and extra ammo belts.”

  “I’m telling you, they’ll be glad to see us.” He hoped.

  “Sure. Whatever.” Torsten rode in silence for the rest of the short drive into the parking garage of the office building housing the PIA headquarters.

  After parking in the darkest corner next to the elevator, Yuri climbed out and removed his hat, gloves and coat.

  Torsten did the same, squinting at the light peeking in from beneath the parking decks. “You sure the sun’s not coming out today?”

  “The weatherman said cloudy until midnight.”

  “Since when has the weatherman gotten it right?”

  “Let’s hope he’s right today. I don’t plan on frying. Not with the possibility that Andrei’s behind the missing women.”

  Feeling completely exposed and a little nervous about walking during the daylight, Yuri kept to the darkest path leading to the elevator and breathed a sigh when he climbed in and scanned the sign indicating what could be found on each floor of the fourteen-story building. PIA headquarters was located on the second floor. He punched the button and grinned at Torsten.

  The tall blond Norseman shook his head. “You owe me big-time for this.”

  * * * * *

  Getting out of the building took a little more time than getting in. The truck wasn’t going anywhere until midnight, and the big doors remained closed. Reggie worked her way around the building, hugging the shadows for ten minutes until she came across a door leading out—the door that had been locked from the outside at the back of the building. She scanned the door handle for any signs of security alarms. There were no warning signs that an alarm would go off if she opened it.

  She had to take the chance. The only other opening was at the front, and a man was stationed there. On the count of three, Reggie took a deep breath and opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind her. She didn’t hear any sirens or buzzing sounds to indicate an alarm had gone off. But she wasn’t taking any chances. The quicker she got out of sight the better off the women inside would be.

  She sprinted toward the edge of the side of the building where Bert was supposed to be waiting. He stood with his back to her, checking around the corner and down at his watch.

  “Psst!”

  Bert jumped and spun toward her, his eyes wide until he recognized her. Then he was running toward her, and they beat a hasty retreat to their car parked three long buildings away.

  Once they were on the road and away from the warehouse district, Reggie’s heartbeat returned to semi-normal.


  “What the hell happened in there?” Bert demanded.

  “I found them.”

  “The women?”

  “Fourteen of them.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.” And it was killing her that she’d left them there. “We have to get back to headquarters for help. This is a bigger operation than the two of us can handle.”

  “No kidding.” He leaned back and turned his head toward her. “You all right?”

  “No.” But she had to hold it together until this was all over. “Madison is in there.”

  “Damn.”

  * * * * *

  Spinning sideways into the parking garage, Reggie parked the car in a No Parking zone next to the elevator and leaped out before the engine had time to completely shut down. She punched the elevator button, and when it didn’t open immediately, she turned to the stairwell, climbing the three flights from the garage to the second floor.

  When she burst through the door into the offices occupied by the PIA, heads turned. With the lives of fourteen women hanging in the balance, Reggie didn’t waste time on pleasantries. She jogged through the rows of cubicles straight to Tanner’s office.

  She didn’t wait for permission to enter. She pushed through the door. “Tanner, I found them.”

  Tanner wasn’t alone. Sitting with their backs to her were two men, one with sooty black hair down to his shoulders, and the other with hair longer than hers and so blond it could be considered white.

  She swallowed her heart and felt it land like a rock in the pit of her stomach. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Yuri and Torsten stood as one and turned toward her. Torsten’s face was split in a long grin, whereas Yuri’s face was set in a serious frown. Even the frown looked sexy on the man.

  What was wrong with her? Good-looking men never had the impact on her like this one. Why couldn’t he be human?

  “Reggie, it’s so good to see a friendly face.” Torsten hugged her like a long-lost friend, not the stranger she’d met during the wee hours of dark morning when she’d needed saving from a pack of rabid gang members. When Torsten stepped backward, Reggie could see her boss’s angry expression.

  “Care to explain?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “We were just telling Agent Tanner about the incident this morning,” Torsten said.

  “Thanks,” Reggie said. Yuri still hadn’t said a word, and it made her all jittery inside. She found herself anxious to hear his low baritone voice with the foreign accent.

  “Next time you debrief me on an operation, don’t leave out the important details,” Tanner said.

  Worry for her sister pushed through her thoughts of Yuri. How could she think of him at a time like this? “How did they get in?”

  “Walked in during broad daylight,” Tanner responded.

  “The cloud cover helps,” Torsten offered.

  “They want to help recover the women and bring in the guy responsible for their disappearances.”

  Reggie put aside her uneasiness and turned to Tanner. “I found them.”

  “The women?” Tanner’s frown lifted. “Where?”

  “In the A.S.E. warehouse near the waterfront.”

  “Why didn’t you bother to call in? We could have sent someone over in a matter of minutes.”

  “I didn’t trust the lines. Another part of last night I didn’t mention was that I think someone knew about our setup and sabotaged it before we even started.”

  Tanner’s jaw tightened. “We’ve lost two good men already and possibly Madison. Think it’s an inside job?”

  “I didn’t want to take the chance,” Reggie said.

  “It’s just as well you didn’t send anyone down there immediately,” Yuri finally spoke up, his voice turning Reggie’s knees to mush.

  “Why is that?” Tanner crossed his arms over his chest as if daring Yuri to say anything he wanted to listen to.

  Yuri’s lips thinned. “If you retrieve the women now, you will not deal with the main problem.”

  “Andrei Skirko,” Torsten filled in. “A.S. of A.S. Enterprises.”

  “What exactly did you learn at the warehouse?” Tanner shot the question at Reggie.

  “They plan to move the women tonight at midnight. They have the truck in place and their boss is due to be there for the event.” She looked from Torsten to Yuri. “I take it the boss is this guy Andrei?”

  “Yes. He’s a four-hundred-twenty-two-year-old vampire we’ve been following off and on over the centuries, cleaning up after him.” Yuri stepped closer, his presence raising her body temperature with each step.

  Reggie held her ground, refusing to let him know she responded in any way to his presence, even though her heart was hammering in her chest and perspiration popped out on her upper lip. “Why should we trust you?”

  “We have the same interests at heart,” he said, his voice soft and directed only at her.

  “I seriously doubt that,” she said, her voice a little less convinced than her body. What was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be even mildly attracted to Yuri Kovak. He was a vampire, she was human. It was just wrong.

  “Be that as it may.” He winked and then turned to face her boss.

  A good thing too, because her skin was tingling all over and her mind wasn’t focusing on anything past his lips.

  Yuri swept his arm out. “We of the vampire world are very much like you.”

  Tanner snorted.

  Yuri nodded but didn’t comment on the derogatory sound. “There are good vampires,” he nodded toward Torsten, “and very bad vampires. When a bad vampire is out of control, Torsten and I are sent in to…fix things.”

  “So you’re some kind of vampire cops?” her boss asked.

  “More like special forces. We come in, assess, identify and eliminate the problem. We work on our own or with local police forces and even the federal government. Check with the CIA. They’ll vouch for us.”

  “Thanks, I will.” Tanner punched a button on his phone. “Maury, call the CIA and ask if they’ve ever worked with a Yuri Kovak and Torsten Lang. Get on that ASAP.”

  “Thus our reason for being here,” Yuri continued when Tanner switched off the intercom. “Which I was getting to before Agent Gallagher arrived.” He shot a glance back at Reggie.

  The glance lit a fire in her and she stepped forward. “I don’t really care why you’re here. We need reinforcements to go into that warehouse and retrieve those women.”

  “And if you do, you might save these women, but Andrei will be free to do it all again.” Yuri stared hard at Reggie. “If not in Houston, in some other city where women are equally vulnerable to him.”

  “What is he doing with them?” Tanner asked.

  Torsten stepped forward. “He’s selling them in foreign countries as sheep to other vampires.”

  “Sheep?” Reggie asked.

  The muscle in Yuri’s jaw twitched. “It’s a crude term for someone who feeds the needs of a vampire, whether it’s blood or lust.”

  “In other words, they’re trafficking women, forcing them to be sex slaves and blood donors for the highest bidder?”

  “American women bring a higher price.” Yuri’s tone was hard.

  Reggie spun on her heels. “I’m getting Madison out of there, and I’m gonna bust some serious heads while I’m at it.”

  Yuri laid a hand on her arm, dragging her to a halt before she reached the door. “You can’t. Andrei will get away. Hopefully, they don’t know you found them and they’ll continue with their planned shipment. We have to be there when it happens and when Andrei shows up to direct operations.”

  “I hate to say he’s right, but the vamp has a point, Reggie.” Tanner glared at Yuri. “You can let go of her arm now.”

  Yuri held on for a second longer and then released her, leaving his warm imprint on her skin.

  “But I can’t just leave Madison there.” Reggie stepped up to Tanner’s desk, trying
hard to ignore the other two men in the room.

  “We’ll get her out of there, but we need to get Andrei as well.” The PIA lead tapped a pen against the hard metal of his desk. “How?”

  Reggie stared at him. “I can’t believe you’re going along with vampires while my sister is lying in some warehouse waiting to be shipped out to the highest bidder. Did you consider these guys might be lying?”

  “I told you I haven’t lied to you,” Yuri said, his voice as warm as melted chocolate.

  Fighting to control her temper, she faced Yuri. “I don’t know that, and I’ve never trusted the word of a vampire. It’s one of your kind who killed my father.”

  A muscle worked in Yuri’s jaw. “I see.”

  “What do you see?” She stared at him, refusing to back down or be sucked in by his handsome looks. “All I see is the enemy in friendly territory.”

  The phone on Tanner’s desk buzzed, and he punched a button. “Tanner.”

  “Sir, CIA says the two names you gave me check out. They also said these guys are the pros and to let them be fully involved in whatever operation you’re conducting.”

  “Thanks.” He stabbed the button and stared across the room at Reggie. “I know how you feel about Madison. I feel the same way. She’s one of my people.”

  “No, you don’t know how I feel,” Reggie said. “She’s my sister, not yours.”

  “Granted.” He nodded. “However, we need to take out Andrei so he can’t do this to other women.”

  “Precisely,” Yuri agreed.

  “I don’t trust you even if the CIA swore on a stack of Bibles. You’re vampires!” Or was it herself she couldn’t trust around Yuri? He’d saved her from Cesar and hidden her until daylight to keep her from getting hurt. What had he done so far to prove himself untrustworthy?

  He was a vampire. A vampire Tanner was willing to believe in. Should she? For her sister?

  “Agent Gallagher,” Tanner said in a warning tone, “if I have to, I’ll pull you off this case.”

  Her heart stopped cold in her chest and then it leapt into motion, beating twice as fast as normal. “You can’t do that. Not while my sister is in that animal’s hands.”