Forbidden Read online

  Usually, Roberto sat on the cot or paced along its long side as he taught and educated both Roc and Ferris. But tonight, he knelt at the end and pulled a wooden crate from beneath. The hinges of the lid creaked as he lifted it and pulled out a dusty bottle. The dark container had no label. The liquid inside sloshed about invitingly as Roberto uncorked the top. He poured the whiskey-colored liquid into two glasses and handed one to Roc.

  With a slight shrug, Roberto said, “Sometimes one needs to numb oneself. This is not an easy task, what we have been given.”

  Roc’s hands shook as he stared into the amber liquor, which could bring temporary peace. He sniffed its aroma. Scotch. Aged at least twenty years if Roc had to guess. The good stuff. Or at least better than the rotgut he’d grown accustomed to. He almost wished for the harsher drink to punish himself. His soul longed for oblivion, where he could forget all he knew, all he’d done, his mistakes, guilt, and foolhardiness. His eyes filled, and the Scotch wavered before him like a golden sea of serenity. But there was no peace for Roc, no comfort, no redemption.

  “What happened, Roc?” The priest’s kind voice seemed to come from far away.

  It took every ounce of control not to toss back the Scotch and let it slide through his veins. Instead, Roc set the glass on the desk with an awkward thump and stood. He walked around the room wanting to avoid why he’d come here. But he couldn’t. With growing heaviness, he slumped onto the cot, hunching his shoulders forward. “Ferris is dead.”

  Shock eclipsed Roberto’s features. His eyes filled with tears, but they did not spill over. He leaned back as if all the air had been sucked from his body, his limbs sagging. Roc had expected dismay or even anger, but this reaction drove the dagger of guilt further into his heart.

  After a moment, the old priest sputtered, “H-how?”

  Roc rubbed the sweat off his palms along his jeans-clad thighs, back and forth along the tense-as-rope muscles as if he could punish himself or somehow infuse his system with courage. “It was my fault.”

  “Your fault? I do not understand.”

  “I took him with me to confront a professor at UPenn.”

  Roberto’s eyes and mouth rounded, and his skin turned pasty white. “The Philomathean…”

  Roc went cold inside. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve known for years…for years. But it has been too powerful to penetrate, the vampire—”

  “Victor Beaumont.”

  Roberto nodded, his mouth pinching at the corners.

  “You knew? But why didn’t you tell me?” asked Roc, shocked into anger. “Why—?”

  “Tell you what? That the group existed? When we were strong enough, I thought maybe we might”—Roberto shook his head—“but alone? Never. It was impossible.” He turned his back on Roc, stepped away, before turning back to face him, his features stricken with raw grief. “And you are too rash yet. If I had told you about the professor, then I would not have been able to hold you back for long.”

  “And while we waited”—Roc tasted the vehemence like vinegar on his tongue—“more innocents died.”

  Roberto glared down at Roc. “We can’t save everyone, Roc. You should know that. And you should know that Ferris was—”

  Roc swiped the Scotch out of the priest’s hand and sent it flying across the room. It smashed into the wall. Rivulets ran down the whitewashed plaster. Splinters of glass slid across the floor.

  Strong hands gripped Roc’s shoulders, and the older man gave him a stern, fatherly look. “Ferris knew what he was getting into. He knew the risks, just like you and I know. It is not your fault. Ferris is dead. But it is not your fault.”

  “But—”

  “No!” Roberto’s voice exploded in the room, the sound reverberating and pulsing against Roc’s eardrums. “It’s not your fault. Accept it. Repeat it.”

  But Roc’s mouth couldn’t form the words. His throat closed, jerked, and convulsed. He shrugged aside Roberto’s firm hands and turned away, unable to look into the priest’s probing gaze.

  “Where is he now?” Roberto asked, his voice quiet in the stillness of the dank room. “Where is my—?” He swallowed hard. “Where is Ferris?”

  “His body is still at the university. Along with the professor’s.”

  “You killed him too?” Astonishment saturated Roberto’s voice, but there was really nothing astonishing about it. Fury had fueled Roc, and it was all a red haze now. There was no satisfaction in murder, not when they had suffered a devastating loss such as Ferris’s.

  “I have to go back and take care of things. Before they are discovered.” Roc sank back onto the cot, his limbs weighted, his soul depleted. “It’s worse than—” He stopped himself from speaking of the gore. “You can’t go. I will—”

  Roberto clapped him on the back. “They will take care of it.”

  The hair on Roc’s neck prickled. “They?”

  “Oh, yes, Professor Beaumont was not alone. But they will not want to be discovered, and so they will clean things up. They will not want investigators snooping around their sacred site.”

  “But Ferris—”

  “Is gone.”

  A silence throbbed inside the room. Roberto sat beside Roc, folding his hands together. Was the priest praying, simply grief stricken, or planning their next attack?

  “Roc,” he finally said, his eyes still closed. “I was not always a priest.”

  The simple statement surprised Roc. He thought of Anthony back in New Orleans, his childhood friend who had become a priest and first suggested to Roc his wife had been killed by vampires, although Roc refused to believe him back then. “Of course not. No priest ever is always a priest. You’re not born with that collar.”

  Roberto’s eyes fluttered open. “I was much like you at one time, bent on revenge. And I studied with a priest named Alejandro. A brilliant man. Scholarly. Gracious. Full of compassion and great humility. He cared for me after my sister, Maria, was killed. That is when my tutorials began about this life. And it was much later…after—” His lips tightened and then relaxed before he continued. “I had begun to travel and didn’t see Alejandro much in those days. Once when I returned, I discovered he was missing and hadn’t been seen in weeks.”

  Slowly, Roberto leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He stared at the floor. “I tracked him down.” Then he met Roc’s gaze. “And I killed him. Alejandro. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But he had been changed. And he was waiting for me. He expected me to do it.”

  Roc drew a shaky breath. “There is no end to all of this, is there?”

  The corners of Roberto’s mouth tensed with what appeared to be regret. “Not that I can see. And yet, we have a holy occupation.”

  “Nothing holy about it,” Roc protested. “I’d prefer to go back to living like I didn’t know any of this.” Roc stood, paced the floor, crunching glass beneath his shoes. “What good does it do anyway? So we kill one vampire? Big deal! There are plenty to take the professor’s place. There are just more killings, more murders, more blood.”

  He felt spent, depleted of everything. He had nothing else to say, no more arguments, no more questions. He stared at the wall and the spilled Scotch, which was wasted now. So much blood spilled. All of it a waste.

  “Is that how you felt about being a cop, Roc?”

  The priest’s question jarred him. “What?”

  “When you were a cop, did you think: what’s the point? There’s always another robbery, another murder, rape, whatever. Crime never ends.”

  Roc buried his fingers in his hair, sliding the pads along his scalp. That life seemed so distant. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. You knew then, just as you know now, that your job is important, even vital. That other lives are depending on you.”

  “But it d
oes no good.”

  “You will never know how much good it is doing. Only God knows the lives you have saved by killing Professor Beaumont. If he were to be allowed to continue…” Roberto shook his head as if that would be the end. “Only God can see the future and what would have been had you not acted.”

  “But Ferris—”

  “Enough! Do not speak his name again.” Roberto’s voice turned to stone. “He is gone. He had a mission as well as you do. Despite the hazards. He wasn’t seeking fame or a long life. He was trying to make a difference. He sought purpose. And he accomplished that. His death helped bring about the destruction of a powerful vampire. And purpose is what you have too, Roc. You have a destiny only you can fulfill. Just as I do. Then one day, I will die, probably the way Ferris did. But lying in a bed and waiting for the end is not our way or our destiny. We live boldly. And we will die the same way. But without regrets.”

  “But—” The buzz of Roc’s cell phone interrupted him. He pulled it from his hip pocket but dumped it on the bed.

  “Answer it,” Roberto said, and he began picking up shards of broken glass off the floor. “That is the only way to find out the answers you seek.”

  It was a local number, Pennsylvania area code. “Yeah? This is Roc.”

  The clearing of a throat made Roc’s muscles tense. “Roc Girouard, this is Levi Fisher calling.”

  “Levi?” He cupped his hand over his forehead. “I’m surprised to hear from—”

  “I need your help.”

  With one simple statement, all Roc’s questions and doubts slid into perspective. He would go and confront whatever evil Levi was now facing. Not because he thought it would help end the vampire curse, or because he believed God wanted him to, but because it was all he could do. If he didn’t, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. For not only did he seek vengeance, but absolution from all of this guilt.

  Chapter Seven

  Levi and Hannah sat side by side at the wooden table, their dour expressions making it seem as if they had never smiled in their lives. They didn’t hold hands or even glance at each other, but they were clearly of one mind.

  “Thank you for coming, Roc.” Levi spoke first in a somber tone. “Hannah’s sister, Rachel, was taken by Akiva.”

  Roc sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “How do you know?”

  “Where else would she be?”

  Roc laughed but caught himself. The worried slant of their brows and tension around their mouths forced Roc to curb his sarcasm. “Look, Levi, people go missing all the time. It doesn’t mean it’s vampire related. It doesn’t even mean foul play. The person could have gotten lost, decided to start a new life, ended up in the hospital.”

  “You know what happened, Roc.”

  “How would I know that? And neither do you, Levi.” Roc leaned forward, bracing his arm on the table next to the iced tea Hannah had prepared for him. “Look, I know you’re worried, but there could be a million reasons why Rachel didn’t come home yesterday.”

  “Her husband died at the hands of a…of…Akiva.” Hannah spoke this time, her voice slow and calm. But there was an underlying layer of fear poisoning her words and the peaceful atmosphere in the small Amish home.

  “You can’t even say it!” Roc’s voice detonated in the room, and with it his temper and frustration over his own denials. “Vampire. Vam—pire. Let’s say it all togeth—”

  “Roc.” Levi’s voice dipped lower in a fatherly intonation.

  But something inside Roc had come unhinged. He clung to the edge of sanity by his fingertips, fighting, struggling, clawing his way back. He had come here expecting the worst, expecting it to be about Akiva. But now that he was here, the grief of Ferris’s death wouldn’t leave. He couldn’t…wouldn’t believe everything bad, everything he would have to deal with for the rest of his life, was because of vampires. Maybe if he didn’t believe, then it would erase the last few hours and six months…or even the past few years.

  Why, he’d lived almost thirty years without any knowledge of vampires, and by God, maybe he could go back to some sort of solid ground of common sense. Good grief, with all the years of police work in his hip pocket, he’d never run into vampires or anything supernatural. Evil existed, sure, because evil ruled in the hearts of men and women. All manner of debauchery and treachery went on in the night and broad daylight, things normal people didn’t want to know existed. And it happened often. But was it all because of some great conspiracy with vampires at the helm?

  The deep end of craziness repelled him, and he made a quick decision. “I can’t help you, Levi.” He pushed back from the table. “Hannah, I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  Her brown eyes widened, but it was her husband, Levi, who spoke. “Why not?”

  What could Roc say? He hadn’t been able to help Ferris. Or Josef. Or Emma. He might as well admit this particular mission was useless. But how could he explain that to this desperate couple, who were looking to him for answers? When the sad fact was Rachel was probably already dead.

  He remembered the pictures of Ruby Yoder, the young Amish woman killed a few months back: fearful frozen gaze, chewed neck, and drops of blood on her apron. Details. Sometimes he really hated the details he couldn’t expunge. He didn’t need all of this again. No more details. No more blood. No more death. Maybe he’d just go live on a beach, stare at the ocean blue, the waves slurping onto the sand, receding and surging forth again, and simply forget.

  But he couldn’t. It was impossible. Because he remembered Rachel’s blue eyes, her slim neck, her slight blush at forgetting her married name. He didn’t want to see her like Ruby Yoder or Emma. But could he stop it from happening again?

  The expectation in both Levi’s and Hannah’s gazes poked at him. “Look”—he glanced downward, ran his hands along his thighs in an attempt to wipe away his own blame—“I can hook you up with the right law enforcement, if she’s truly missing, but that’s all.”

  “If that’s the best—”

  “No.” Hannah interrupted her husband. She didn’t glance at Levi for permission or apology but stared straight at Roc with a solid intensity. “No law enforcement will understand what we’re up against. But you know, Roc. You understand.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “You’re Rachel’s only hope.”

  She opened her mouth but then closed it, her lips tightening. The tears disappeared, and a fire sparked in those brown depths, a fire born of understanding and desperation. “I don’t want my sister to end up like Ruby or Josef. It’s my fault this happened. But I’m helpless without your help. Please, Roc.”

  Roc swallowed, cutting off the angry, defensive retort rising in his throat. He didn’t want to be anyone’s last hope. Because then they didn’t stand a chance in hell.

  “It’s not just one life we’re asking you to save.” Levi hooked an arm around his wife’s shoulders. They were a concrete force together, as if fortified by each other’s presence. “Rachel is pregnant.”

  The simple statement made Roc’s decision for him. Not because he thought he could do anything to stop Akiva, if that was who in fact had taken Rachel, but because it wasn’t one life at risk but two. So if he was going to do this, he wouldn’t make assumptions He would approach this disappearance like any other, like any sane cop oblivious of supernatural phenomenon.

  He drew a calming breath, a pathetic effort to slow his racing heartbeat. “Look, Levi, Hannah, I’m not unsympathetic to Rachel’s disappearance. But really? We’re gonna jump to the conclusion that some vampire grabbed her? That’s reason number one million, seven hundred fifty-nine thousand, two hundred and eleven. Before we jump to that most bizarre conclusion, let’s examine a few other possibilities.”

  Levi and Hannah sat perfectly still and waited for him to continue.

  “She lost her husband.” A flash of memory came to mind, Jose
f lying in the cemetery. “So she’s a widow.” Roc tapped his leg with his thumb as he thought of all the possibilities, all the reasons, all the explanations, which filed logically and rationally through his mind. “Maybe she’s seeing someone else.”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “She could have done so without telling you.”

  Levi shook his head this time.

  “She could have been seeing someone outside the district.” Roc kept on with the possibilities, trying to jar loose their tightly held belief that this involved a vampire. “Maybe she started seeing an Englisher.”

  “Roc,” Hannah said with firm conviction, “our parents had suggested other single men who might take up the mantle of fatherhood for Josef’s baby, but she wouldn’t—”

  “If it was someone they might not approve of, then they might not know either. You probably wouldn’t even know.”

  “She would not risk being shunned.”

  Roc blinked but kept on. “She might.”

  “She was never alone,” Hannah said in crisp tones.

  Roc frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “We kept an eye on her. Others kept watch too,” Levi explained, glancing at Hannah. “Because we feared something like this might happen.”

  “Okay, then maybe she went to the doctor. She was pregnant, right? So maybe the hospital—”

  “And how would she have gone?” Levi questioned.

  Roc opened his mouth then closed it. Back in New Orleans, there would have been a dozen ways for someone to get to an ER. But here in Promise, Pennsylvania, where buggies outnumbered cars, or at least seemed to, where telephones were rare commodities, in the Amish community at least, where hospitals weren’t even the first choice, the possibilities were more limited. Would a pregnant woman have hitched a horse to a buggy by herself? Maybe. But then wouldn’t they be missing a horse and buggy? One of those red scooters so many of the youngsters used going to and from school was out of the question for a pregnant woman. If she’d asked for a ride from a neighbor, then the neighbor would have told the family, and the whole community would already be in the know. The natural grapevine wove through the community, tying them all together and keeping them better informed than any telephones, newspaper, or twenty-four-hour news station could.