I left the airport with three agents in a dark blue off-road vehicle. I sat in back with the senior agent from San Francisco. His name was Robert Hatfield, and he told me some of what they had so far. "We found where some of the so-called vampires are staying. It's a ranch in the foothills north of Santa Cruz, not too far from the ocean. At this juncture, we don't know if Inspector Hughes is being held there. She hasn't been spotted."
"What's out there in the hills?" I asked Hatfield. He was young looking, could have been anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. He looked fit. A short brush cut. Appearances obviously meant a lot to him.
"Not a hell of a lot. It's rural. A couple of fairly large ranches. Rocks, desert birds of prey, a few mountain cats."
"Not tigers?" I asked.
"Funny you should mention tigers. The ranch out there used to be a preserve for wild animals. Bears, wolves, tigers, even an elephant or two. The owners trained animals, mostly for use in feature films and commercials. They were basically hippies left over from the sixties. The ranch was actually licensed by the Department of the Interior. It did business with Tippi Hedren, Siegfried and Roy."
"The animals aren't still on the property?"
"Not for the past four or five years. The original owners disappeared. No one's been interested in buying the land. It's about fifty-five acres. Not good for much. You'll see."
"What about the animals that had been there? You know what happened to them?"
"Some were bought by other preserves that supply specialty animals to movies. Brigitte Bardot supposedly took some. So did the San Diego Zoo."
I sat back in my seat and thought everything through while we rode. I didn't want to get my hopes up again. I wondered if the past owners of the ranch might have left a tiger behind. I spun a wild scenario out a little in my head. Actually, it was kind of interesting. Vampires in Africa and Asia supposedly changed shape into tigers rather than bats. The tiger imagery was certainly scarier than bats, and so were the ravaged bodies I had seen. Also, Santa Cruz had a reputation to uphold: the vampire capital.
We passed a farmhouse along the highway and then a small winery. Not much else to see, though. Agent Hatfield told me that in summer the hills got very brown and gold, much like the African veldt.
I had been trying not to think about Jamilla and the danger she might be in. Why did she have to come up here alone? What drove her? The same things that drove me? If shewas dead, I would never forgive myself.
The car finally pulled off the main road. I didn't see a house or other building in any direction that I looked. Just barren hills. A hawk floated easily in liquid blue skies. The scene was quiet and serene and quite beautiful.
We turned down an unpaved road and went for about a mile over bumpy, very rocky terrain. We passed over the grille of a cattle guard. A broken split-rail fence ran alongside the road for about a hundred yards, stopped, then started again.
Suddenly, we came upon six vehicles parked on either side of the trail. All were unmarked, mostly Jeeps.
Standing right there was Kyle Craig. Kyle had his hands on his hips, and he was smiling as if he had the most amazing secret to tell me.
I suspected that he did.
Chapter 85
"I think this is exactly what we've been working for," Kyle said as I walked up to him. We shook hands, an old ritual that reflected Kyle's formality. He looked calmer and more in control than he had during the past week. "Let me show you something," he said. "Come."
I followed Kyle down along the split-rail fence until we came to a broken-down gate. He showed me a faded image. The body and head of a tiger had been branded into the gate. It was subtle, but this was it, it had to be. We had arrived at the tiger's lair.
"The group inside seems to be led by the Sire, the new and improved one, I assume. We haven't been able to establish an identity for the leader. Alex, the past Sire was the magician Daniel Erickson. Two members of the group just returned from a trip. They were in New Orleans. Pieces are finally starting to fit."
I looked at Kyle, shook my head. "How did you find all of this out? When did you get here, Kyle?" How much have you been keeping from me? And why?
"Santa Cruz police contacted us, and I came right out. They grabbed one of the 'undead' when the little prick left the ranch. He's a local high school dropout, wasn't as committed as some of the others. He told us what he knew."
"Is the Sire in there now?"
"Supposedly. This kid had never actually seen the Sire. He's not part of the inner circle. The two members who traveled to New Orleans are in there, though. He heard they were the ones who killed Daniel and Charles. He said the two of them are total psychos."
"Well, I believe that." I looked down through the limbs of pine and cypress trees at the ranch. "What about Jamilla Hughes?"
His eyes shifted. "We found her car in town, Alex. But no sign of her. The kid we questioned didn't know about her either. He claimed there was a commotion at the ranch late last night. He was bunked in with some of the younger ghouls. They thought that someone had broken the perimeter, thought it might be the police. But then it got quiet again — according to the boy. There's no evidence that she's there."
"Can I talk to him, Kyle?"
Kyle looked away; he didn't seem to want to answer me. "The Santa Cruz police took him away. I guess you could go into town to see him. I talked to him, Alex. The androgynous little twerp was scared of me. Imagine that."
Kyle was acting strange, but I reminded myself that he understood the deranged criminal mind better than any other FBI agent or police officer I had worked with. The agents who worked under him were convinced that he would run the Bureau one day. I wondered if Kyle could ever take himself out of the field, though.
"I know you're worried about Inspector Hughes. I guess we could go in there right now, but I think we should wait. I want to go at them after midnight, Alex. Or possibly near sunup. We're not even sure she's down there."
Kyle paused. His eyes shifted toward the distant ranch house. "I want to find out if they hunt as a group. There are questions we need answered. What motivates these freaks? What makes them tick? I want to make surewe get the Sire this time."
Chapter 86
It was a long, cool, very tense night in the foothills outside Santa Cruz. I couldn't wait for it to be over, or maybe I couldn't wait for it to start. We learned something interesting right away. The woman lawyer who had been murdered in Mill Valley had been involved in a lawsuit trying to get control of this property. It was probably why she and her husband had been hung.
I watched the ranch through binoculars from the surrounding trees and rock formations. I watched until my eyes ached. No one had left as of eleven. I didn't see anyone standing lookout either. The people inside were either crazy or supremely confident. Or maybe they were innocent. Maybe this was another wrong turn for us.
I was trying not to worry too much about Jamilla, but it wasn't working. I couldn't bear to think that she might already be dead. Was that what Kyle thought? Was it what he knew and was keeping from me?
At midnight, two males walked outside leading a tiger. I watched them through the night-sight glasses. I was almost certain I had seen them in New Orleans. They'd been at the fetish ball, hadn't they? They loped off into the flat, open fields behind the house.