Order of Terminus

  Order of Terminus

  by

  Olivia Starke

  Order of Terminus

  Blood Heat: copyright © 2017, Olivia Starke

  Blood Desires: copyright © 2017, Olivia Starke

  Blood Mercy: copyright © 2017, Olivia Starke

  Blood Ties: copyright © 2017, Olivia Starke

  ISBN: 9781944270780

  Publisher: Beachwalk Press, Inc.

  Electronic Publication: September 2017

  Editor: Pamela Tyner

  Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs

  eBooks are not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Dedication

  To all my awesome readers, thank you for your support!

  Blood Heat

  A vicious murderer is on the loose, and Detective Josie Lewis is hot on his trail. Fearing a serial killer has settled in her town of Franklin, Illinois, she’s determined to find the monster before he can kill again. When Josie spots something suspicious behind the home of a recent victim, she doesn’t hesitate to go investigate. She never could have imagined what waited for her in the shadows.

  Grant Stone is a Hunter in the Order of Terminus, a secret organization that makes sure vampires remain hidden from humanity. He’s in pursuit of a Dissenter, a feral vampire that threatens to expose their kind. When Grant finds the intriguing Detective Lewis dying, he has only one chance at saving her. But can she cope with the change she’s about to undergo? And can he stop the Dissenter before it strikes again?

  Chapter 1

  Susan Wells pulled her minivan along the curb then shifted into park. She hadn’t been able to raise her close friend by phone for several days, and she was worried. It wasn’t like Jolene to not return her calls.

  She strode up the short walkway, noting the newspapers strewn over the usually impeccable lawn. A sinking feeling hit her gut; something was definitely wrong. Her steps quickened, and she leapt onto the low porch, not bothering with the three short steps. She pounded on the door. A neighbor’s dog began barking madly, and then its mournful howl filled the morning air.

  “Jolene! Are you home?”

  No answer. She tried the doorknob. It was locked.

  Did she have a heart attack?

  Real worry flooded into her veins. Jolene was in her late fifties and a heavy smoker.

  With shaky fingers, Susan dug the spare key for Jolene’s house from her pocket. It rattled against the lock, and she dropped it. Cursing, she chased it with fumbling fingers across the small wooden deck, nearly knocking it between the slats of wood. Finally picking it up, she managed to slip it into the deadbolt. It clicked, and she pushed the door open.

  “Jolene!” she called out again.

  No answer.

  The living room stood empty and undisturbed. The smell hit her then. A putrid odor mixed with an underlying coppery tang, and it sucked the breath from her lungs. Bile rose into the back of her throat.

  Something was really wrong.

  She backed out of the door, covering her nose and mouth, choking on the stench. She ran back to her minivan and, after grabbing her cellphone, dialed 911.

  * * * *

  An officer gagged next to Josie Lewis, and she yelled, “Don’t do that here.” She pointed toward the door. “You’ll contaminate evidence.”

  The rookie police officer darted outside, and moments later, she heard his retching. Josie shook her head in empathy as the smell boiled up into her nostrils, forcing her to take shallow breaths. The heavy curtains on the bedroom windows were drawn, leaving a fitting, somber ambience and obscuring what was surely an even more horrendous sight in broad daylight.

  Jotting notes in a small notepad, she nodded toward the coroner who’d just arrived.

  “Hey, Josie, how’s little league going?” the coroner, Dr. Katherine Walsh, asked. She was a petite woman, barely five-foot-one, with a touch of gray laced in her curly, black hair. The coroner surveyed the bloody scene. Her soft, flowery perfume wafted to Josie, and she sucked in a greedy sniff of the jasmine-bergamot mixture that momentarily overrode the smell of death.

  “Pretty good,” Josie said. “My nephew is playing first base this year. How’s Caroline’s new job?”

  “She loves it. She’s worked so hard for her doctrine in psychology, and the position at the children’s hospital is a dream come true.” Dr. Walsh was kneeling next to the body, looking it over, lifting it this way and that. “I’d say this poor woman has been dead for three days.” She sighed and brushed a strand of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Caroline and I are having a barbeque next week. You need to come over and see the new décor.”

  “Sounds great,” Josie said.

  “I’ll let Caroline know.”

  “Cause of death?” Josie asked.

  “Looks like she bled out from the laceration on her neck. Odd though. I’d expect more blood than this.” Dr. Walsh looked around the horrific scene.

  “More blood than this?” Josie cocked her brows.

  Shrugging, the coroner stood and removed her latex gloves. “We’ll see after an autopsy. Crime Scene can come in now.” She nodded toward several individuals standing just within the doorway, and they entered, carrying large black cases.

  Dr. Walsh wrinkled her nose. “If you ever get used to this smell, it’s time to leave the business.”

  Walking outside the home, Josie ignored the flashes from cameras and news reporters who shouted for comments as she thought about the scene inside. Jolene Gomez had been a fifty-seven year old divorced mother of two. Her youngest had just married, and Jolene would have had her second grandchild in six months. The woman now lay face-down on her bedroom floor with her throat torn out. Blood smeared the wall above the bed as if someone had run bloody hands over them.

  Who would do this?

  Franklin, Illinois was a moderate-sized city an hour and a half south of Chicago. They weren’t used to crimes this horrific.

  What side of hell would you live in to be used to this?

  She lifted her gaze from the notepad as a fellow detective approached.

  “Hey, Lewis,” Detective Jones said, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “What are we looking at here?”

  “God only knows,” she replied, tapping her pen against the pad of paper. “Go take a look.”

  Jones walked into the house. He soon reappeared, shaking his head and looking a little ashen.

  “Holy hell,” he said, eyeing the reporters who were like hungry dogs hot on a trail. They strained to hear the conversation, and Jones lowered his voice. “Drugs? I saw some cases like this in St. Louis that involved Meth,” Jones said. “Maybe not quite as bloody though.”

  “The friend…” Josie glanced at her notepad. “…a Mrs. Susan Wells, said the victim lived a clean life.”

  Jones ran a beefy hand over his shaved head while several female reporters looked him over in appreciation. In his mid-forties, he was what some would consider attractive with his deep-set green eyes and tall, solid build. Josie had never noticed him in that way, though she had to admit his new cologne—a spicy, musky brand she couldn’t place—left her with a baser feminine appreciation. But she could never be involved with a fellow cop, or any officer of the law for that matter. She typically went for the blond playboy jock types who knew how to love ’em and leave ’em. Having grown up in a home where male role models came and went depending on her mother’s whims, she shied away from per
manency.

  Jones scribbled on a notepad of his own, a sloppy chicken scratch that left Josie curious if he’d be able to decipher it later.

  Josie’s gaze roamed over the crowd that had assembled along the street. She studied each individual from behind her dark, aviator-style sunglasses, looking for anything that might catch her interest. Mostly middle-aged, middle-class neighbors, but one figure stood out to her. He was a tall man, late-thirtyish, with a muscular, athletic build, sandy brown hair, and eyes hidden behind his own aviator shades. His skin looked tanned against the crisp, white polo shirt he wore.

  It’s fifty degrees out here and he’s at ease in a short-sleeved shirt?

  Josie committed his physical description to memory. Jones asked a couple of questions, and Josie referred to her notes. When she looked back toward the milling assembly of people, the man had disappeared.

  * * * *

  Word had quickly gotten to Grant Stone from his Contact about the body that had been found.

  What a mess.

  He didn’t need to see the scene inside the small ranch house to know that a lot of blood was involved. The metallic odor carried to him; he could taste it in the back of his throat. His heart quickened, and he clamped his teeth together, willing self-control. The woman’s neighbors were gathered behind the yellow police tape, chattering about the lost soul inside.

  If only they knew the killer they had in their midst.

  He found his gaze drawn to the female detective that stood outside the house. A little above average in height and in her mid-thirties, she had a lean build beneath her conservative, navy pantsuit. Dark sable hair that glistened in the sun was smoothed back and secured into a bun at the nape of her neck. She was cool and polished, despite having just viewed a vicious murder. Her voice carried to him over the din of the gathered crowd. Silky soft with the hint of a southern drawl, not quite what he’d expected.

  The woman detective surveyed the crowd before settling her gaze dead on him. Even though dark sunglasses hid her eyes, he knew she was sizing him up. Grant could feel her gaze moving over his body, and it left a trail of heat on his skin.

  Her sharp eyes had picked up an anomaly in the environment—him.

  As soon as another detective on the scene diverted her attention, he made his exit.

  Chapter 2

  “What?” Josie’s mind was muddled, her voice husky with sleep as she spoke into the phone.

  “The Gomez home is on fire,” a male voice repeated. “The call just came in.”

  Gomez? She shook her head in confusion. “Oh, crap.” She sat up in bed. Her cat, Sasha, gave a meow of protest before settling back onto the comforter. “What’s going on? How?” she asked, sliding her legs over the side of the bed. She clicked on the bedside lamp, cringing against the sudden flood of light.

  “Not sure yet,” Detective Jones stated, his own voice weighted with exhaustion.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Josie was already making her way to her bathroom. It was just after two AM, and Josie’s eyes burned with lack of sleep. She yawned, wishing she’d slept more than two and a half hours.

  She slipped out of her nightgown and into a black pantsuit then pulled on her matching wool trench coat. With her hair secured in a tight bun, she was on her way to the Gomez home.

  The glow from the flames could be seen from several blocks away and, with a sinking feeling, she floored her dark sedan down the deserted side streets.

  “Total loss,” the fire chief said, rubbing the back of his neck, his helmet cradled in his other arm. “A neighbor saw the flames and called nine-one-one.”

  “This ain’t no accident by a long shot,” Detective Jones said more to himself that Josie.

  He paced back and forth, looking disheveled and irritated as the fire was doused. Smoke mixed with the thick April mist, and the odor of wet soot, burned wood and plastics hung in a cloud around them.

  Josie accepted a cup of coffee from an officer on the scene. After thanking her, Josie turned her attention back to the black skeletal frame of the house still aglow with embers. She sucked her top lip between her teeth and sniffed. The cold night air was making her nose run and her ears felt like ice. She sipped the bitter black brew, enjoying the warmth washing down her throat.

  “Chief Andrews, do you have any idea how the fire started?” she asked, watching Detective Jones speak with the sheriff.

  “Won’t have an answer for you until the investigators look things over in the morning,” he said, his voice hoarse from the smoke. “’Tween you an’ me, it was either a massive electrical short or arson.”

  Josie snapped her head around to face the fire chief. “How can you tell?”

  “The intensity of the blaze, ma’am,” he replied. “It burned too hot.”

  Josie rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache of massive proportions coming on. First a brutal murder, then a suspicious fire. What was next?

  Detective Jones walked over to her, nursing his own cup of coffee, his face a mask of annoyance. “The SOB was covering his tracks.”

  “We won’t know that for sure until the fire investigators get here,” Josie said, though she couldn’t deny that it looked that way.

  “Oh, come on, Lewis. You’re a bright girl,” Jones said gruffly, pressing on. “You know it as well as I do.”

  Josie stared down, tapping a foot against the frosty pavement. She blew out a breath. “I hope Crime Scene got what they needed yesterday, because there’s no going back now.”

  Jones snorted. “No kidding.”

  It was confirmed later that morning that there had been a short in the fuse box.

  Coincidence?

  Josie had the feeling that wasn’t the case, and Detective Jones had insisted it wasn’t. His father had been an electrician, and he had some knowledge of electrical wiring in a house. It was possible that someone with electrical expertise could cause a fire in such a manner, and that was all she and Detective Jones needed. Arson related to the murder was now on their caseload.

  Unbidden, the image of the stranger at the scene the day before popped into her mind. He had stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the gathered crowd. There was something overtly masculine about him that stirred Josie’s blood. She shrugged off the feeling. He could be their suspect.

  “Why wait though?” Josie said around the bite of cheese Danish she’d just taken. “Why not start the fire right after the murder? What’s to hide once the cops get to the scene?”

  Jones shrugged and crammed the rest of a donut into his mouth. He washed it down with his fifth cup of coffee of the day. “Maybe he got spooked and took off, then felt he needed to cover up what he could. Who knows what goes on in a psychopath’s mind?”

  “I don’t like it, Jones. It’s not lining up.”

  “The worst cases never do.”

  * * * *

  Grant heard about the fire on the evening news and reached for his cellphone.

  “It’s being reported as suspicious, Martin,” Grant said to his Contact.

  “Too bad we were too late. Any leads?”

  “No, but my source at the police department is getting the autopsy reports along with any information he can in regard to the investigation.”

  Martin grunted. “We can’t let this happen again.”

  “No, we can’t,” Grant agreed.

  He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the nightstand in the motel room and clasped his hands behind his head as he leaned back against the headboard. He stared at the white, popcorn ceiling and considered his next move. He was a member of Order of Terminus, an elite special ops group that worked to separate the human world from that of the vampire. It was vital that his kind remained myth and legend. Humanity wouldn’t react well to the danger they represented.

  Grant’s mind settled on the woman detective at the Gomez house. What would it take to break through that tough exterior?

  His body reacted to the thought, and his cock grew stiff. He stood and pac
ed the small room like a caged leopard. It was best for vamps to stay away from dating a prey species.

  Would she be soft and willing beneath me, or throw me down and ride me hard?

  Uttering an oath, he grabbed his keys and headed out the door. It was nearly one-thirty in the morning and he needed to feed. He’d already staked out the perfect place, and he’d be able to get his attention back to his job afterward.

  * * * *

  Claire Montgomery wasn’t expecting a visitor at two in the morning, but in her line of work, she never knew what she’d get. The knock had been barely audible on the front door. Obviously someone nervous about getting a score, and Claire was good at dealing with that sort of thing. Maybe a man was at the door, and she could make a little extra cash.

  She smiled as the neighbor’s dog across the street began barking ferociously. It let out a mournful howl. Still hoping she’d find a guy looking for some action standing on her stoop, she answered the door. Claire looked up and met a pair of male eyes that glittered in the dark.

  She wasn’t let down.

  * * * *

  It was the same scene in a different house. The woman’s throat had been ripped open, and she lay on her bedroom floor. It looked as if bloody hands had been smeared over the wall above the bed.

  “A Ms. Claire Montgomery, known drug dealer and prostitute.” Detective Jones was looking over the information he had collected as Josie took in the familiar, brutal scene.

  Dr. Walsh had just finished up and was leaving. Josie nodded at the somber-looking coroner.

  “I don’t like it,” Dr. Walsh said. “It’s the same MO as before. We just happened to find the poor woman sooner this time.”

  “So, death occurred sometime in the night?” Josie asked.

  “Based on the liver temp, I’d say it happened around two-thirty.”

  “When she didn’t show up for a meeting with her parole officer, he called her in. PD showed up to find this.” Jones waved a hand toward the brutalized body.