by Kristie Cook
“Um . . . more than ready,” Alys said from behind me.
“Sure she doesn’t have a stone?” Tristan’s mind had gone right to where mine had.
I threw my shoulders back with pride. “Already checked.”
Then I grimaced, disgusted with myself for being proud of thinking like a Daemoni. Sure, we had to be preemptive, which required anticipating their moves and schemes, but I shouldn’t have been so happy with myself. What did that say about me? I didn’t want to know because guilt would lead to inaction, which would lead to never finding our son.
“I think there’s a small safe house in Charlotte?” Sheree mused.
“A city after my own heart.” Char snickered. “Yeah, there is. I’ll give the caretaker a call to let her know we’re coming. You’ll love Terry.”
The drive to Charlotte took almost a full day because we once again had to take the back roads. I rode my own bike so Alys could ride with Tristan and he could keep his power on her. Sheree rode with Char this time. I tried to suppress my annoyance that we had to do a little jog south, rather than head north, but I didn’t want to drag Alys all over the eastern seaboard while she was still Daemoni and, therefore, a potential danger.
We arrived in Charlotte in time for dinner.
“Something smells delicious,” I couldn’t help saying as soon as we walked into the two-story home and got over the whole bowing thing with Terry, the witch who managed the safe house. The scrumptious fragrance of garlic, basil, and other herbs had me literally drooling for real food, and I had to wipe my hand over my mouth.
“Pasta with Italian sausage. My specialty,” Terry said. The witch was a pixie of a thing, shorter even than me, with short-cropped gray hair and crinkles around her hazel eyes. “We’ll get you settled and then you can eat before getting started.”
“Good idea.” I knew I’d need the energy.
Although the darkness of night would be falling soon—meaning Alys would be at her strongest—Char agreed we’d start after dinner. She said Alys was weakened already and obviously committed enough to doing this that she didn’t expect a big fight.
Terry first took us to a conversion room where we left Alys under Sheree’s watch, and then she showed us the rest of the house. Although not a mansion, the safe house was still large, with five bedrooms, including one for Terry. She only had one other resident: a shifter who’d been badly hurt in a fight a few days ago and needed a safe place to fully recuperate. Fortunately for us, three others had recently departed, headed to an Amadis colony in the Outer Banks.
The caretaker tried to give up her master bedroom for Tristan and me, not because there weren’t enough rooms for all of us, but because of the whole royalty thing. We wouldn’t have it, though, and since I’d be spending most of my time with Alys anyway and Tristan always stayed near me during conversions, we didn’t allow an argument.
Terry entertained everyone during dinner with stories and jokes that she laughed at herself, and her laugh was so contagious, you couldn’t help but laugh along with her. But part of me had checked out of the conversation, wanting to take care of Alys, make sure we’d be leaving her in good hands, and then get back on the road. Dorian still needed us.
Dread weighed down my heart when we returned to Alys’s room, knowing what we had to put her through when she’d been so nice and forgiving already. Besides Sonya, she was the most docile convert I’d ever had, and I was glad we didn’t have to chain her to the bed.
Although Alys complied with everything we asked of her, the Daemoni in her wasn’t quite as willing to acquiesce. Char and I sat with her for forty-eight hours straight, removing the darkness from Alys’s soul. Because Terry’s small safe house was really meant to be a haven for injured or battle-weary Amadis, not a center for conversions, she didn’t have a full conversion team on staff. So we had no choice but to stay for several weeks while Sheree helped the vampire through her faith healing.
In the meantime, the rest of us rode out on short trips, searching the area for more potential converts, as well as for Dorian and his probable captors. While we were out, Blossom and I would do our thing in various locations. The nudge to go north had disappeared, though, and nothing replaced it. Unfortunately, Blossom didn’t know if the lack of direction meant Dorian’s presence on the scrap piece of blanket I still carried had weakened too much, or if we had moved within proximity to him and his captors. When she consulted with Terry and Char, the mages didn’t have an answer—neither were experts with this spell, but they believed both options were possible—but if we were close, the cloak over our son remained powerful. We ran into an Amadis intelligence team, but they had no news to share. Mom also gave us updates, although nothing useful for our mission.
A couple of weeks in, we received a call about a Daemoni attack. We all went out, and although we could have had six new converts, we only managed to bring in two. As in two more Char, Sheree, and I needed to stay for, which kept us in Charlotte even longer.
At least Blossom had the opportunity to learn all about conversions, and not surprisingly, she was better at the first part—the transformation—than the faith-healing phase. She could keep talking to them and giving Amadis power through their internal fight, but she’d go off on too many tangents when it came to discussing faith and what it meant to be an Amadis.
The house quickly became too cramped, so everyone on my team, except Tristan and me, checked in to a hotel a block away, though they spent the majority of their time at the house. Especially meal times, because we ate quite well. Terry loved to cook, and with Tristan and me in the kitchen, too, when we had the chance, we could whip up some truly gourmet meals. When the time finally came to leave, I would miss her. But I couldn’t wait to get back on the road.
Memorial Day weekend passed and the heat of a southern summer set in when we finally thought we were ready to leave, but then Terry received a strange phone call.
“That was one of ours, a were-lynx who’s a detective on the local force,” Terry said, her eyes lit with excitement as her gaze traveled over Tristan, Charlotte, and me while we sat at the large farm-style kitchen table after lunch on an early June day. “Lucky for us, she was called in on a bizarre case. They demolished an old bank downtown and found two bodies buried in the foundation.”
“Really?” I asked, my curiosity piqued, although I wasn’t sure why this news made us lucky.
“They both had silver stakes still jammed in their hearts,” she continued.
Tristan raised a brow. “Sounds like Daemoni vamps who were put down.”
“Exactly!” Terry said enthusiastically. “That’s why she called me. And what’s really crazy is they’ve been there since 1913. Everyone threw a fit about tearing the building down because it’s a historical landmark, but a sinkhole formed behind it, and they were afraid the building would collapse. But who knew there’d be bodies in there?”
“So what does this mean?” I asked. “If we pull the stakes, they’ll revive?”
“You know the only way to permanently kill vampires,” Tristan said, which I took as a yes.
“They’ll need lots of blood.” Vanessa came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter. “Lots of it. They’ve been dry for a century.”
Her whole body shuddered as she imagined going without blood for so long.
“How do we know they’re Daemoni?” I asked.
“It’s an educated guess because the stakes are silver, which probably knocked them out so the attacker could get them into the foundation,” Tristan said.
My own body mimicked Vanessa’s, shuddering at the thought of being buried alive.
“So if they’ve been down this long, we could convert them, couldn’t we?” I asked. “Wouldn’t the Daemoni energy be weak?”
“Bingo!” Terry said, tapping her nose with her index finger. “Perfect timing with you still here.”
“Actually, it depends,” Vanessa cut in. “When I was full-on Daemoni, if somebody put me down for that
long, I’d be pissed off, and I’d want some serious revenge. I’d be killing every mofo who got in my way. Screw converting.”
Tristan analyzed the situation. “If whoever put them there is still alive, they’d have to be Daemoni or Amadis. It’s possible for an informed norm to have done it, but it’s been a hundred years. They’re long dead by now.”
“And no Amadis would have done such a horrible thing,” Charlotte said.
“So our biggest risk is the attacker was Daemoni when they did it, but have converted to Amadis since then. That would mean these vamps could go after one of our people in revenge,” I concluded. “Otherwise, they’d be going after Daemoni, and I, personally, don’t have a problem with that. Or, maybe they could be happy we revived them and will convert, especially if the Daemoni put them in there.”
Charlotte drummed her fingers on the table. “There’s only one way to find out.”
“Pull the stakes and give them blood,” Vanessa replied. “And if they try to go bat-shit crazy on us, we can just stab them again and find another freshly poured foundation.”
Charlotte gave her the stink eye. “Or handle them the way we do all Daemoni, and if one of our own is in danger, we make sure they’re protected.”
Terry gave us the address and her van, and Tristan, Charlotte, and I drove downtown to retrieve the bodies. This was one mission nobody else on my team really wanted to be a part of, which I didn’t understand. My curiosity had me nearly bouncing in my seat with a perverse excitement. The Daemoni must have heard the news, too, because several of them swarmed around the area. Charlotte cloaked our van once we pulled into the parking garage next door, then kept us cloaked as we made our way to the lanky woman cop standing in the pile of rubble.
We’re here, I told her silently, making her jump. Sorry. I thought you knew about me.
“Of course.” She gave only the briefest of bows, thank the Angels, otherwise a full-blown knee-drop would have given us away. “There’s only one left. The Daemoni already got the other before I could stop them.”
She pointed to a large wooden box, surprising me. I guess I hadn’t expected them to be in coffins, but to be more like concrete statues.
Thanks. We’ll take it from here.
“No, thank you. They’ve been creepin’ me out since the minute they called me in. My skin won’t stop crawlin’.” She shivered as though to emphasize her point.
Do you need a mage to alter anyone’s memories? Char fed me the question so we wouldn’t weird the lynx out any more than she already had been with the mind-speak.
“No, ma’am. We have a wizard who oversaw the demo. We’re good.”
Charlotte set a cloak over the box, and Tristan used his power to raise the makeshift coffin and direct it to the van. We were in and out without the Daemoni knowing. Now we only had to hope the guy didn’t go psycho on us when we revived him.
“I’ve made room in the basement,” Terry said when we returned to the house, and she led us downstairs.
The basement was divided into two rooms, both of them looking a lot like what I called the dungeons at our own safe house, although the dark, windowless basement made it feel more like a real dungeon down here. It even smelled dank and musty, like I imagined the bowels of an ancient castle would. Silver chains with cuffs hung from the support beams overhead, and the concrete floor angled toward a large drain in the center of each room. Terry moved the bed out of the east room and replaced it with a worktable on wheels, and Tristan set the wooden box on top of it. Tristan and Char grasped the lid, and my excitement about seeing the nearly dead vamp suddenly waned. I stepped back to join Terry by the wall. With no pomp or circumstance, they lifted the top.
And the smell. Oh god, the smell.
My stomach lurched, and we all automatically pulled back as a sickening sweet odor of mold, dust, and rotting flesh plumed from the box and hung in the air. I clamped my hand over my mouth and nose to keep from gagging. Once they recovered from the assault to their noses, Tristan and Char walked around the casket, and then stood next to each other on the far side as they studied the body. When they both made funny faces, morbid curiosity got the best of me, as it did Terry, and we both crept closer. My heart stuttered in my chest as I took in the sight. The vampire looked marginally better than my overactive imagination had envisioned, especially with that god-awful smell.
A full head of dull brown hair crowned his head when, for some reason, I’d expected only a few gray and brittle strands dangling from a skull. His sunken eyes were open and blue, staring lifelessly at the ceiling, when I’d admittedly imagined him as not having any eyeballs at all. I didn’t know why I expected such ridiculousness—maybe the writer in me had thought they’d been eaten away by worms or bugs. In fact, I’d actually thought creepy-crawly things would be skittering all over him, although I knew logically this vision made no sense since he’d been buried in concrete, not in dirt. A suit, which had probably looked smart and classy in 1913 but was now dusty and covered in century-old mildew, clothed his bony body. The jacket, vest, and button-down shirt underneath had been torn open, revealing a portion of his torso. His skin, muscles, and apparently all of his organs were dried up and clung to his bones, as though every drop of moisture in them had been sucked out by a vacuum, making him look like a skeleton covered with a grayish colored shrink wrap.
“Blood’s ready?” Charlotte asked as she leaned over him, studying the stake in his chest—a dull silver object about the size of a conductor’s wand.
“Right here.” Terry brought over an armful of donor bottles, set them on a steel table, and opened one as she stood at the head of the coffin.
“Alexis, this could be dangerous,” Char said. “I’d prefer you go upstairs.”
“Yeah, right.” I snorted. “Not a chance.”
“Ugh. You’re too much like your mother,” she muttered as she wrapped her hands around the stake. “Terry, have a bottle ready and at his lips when I pull this out. Tristan, be ready to paralyze him. Alexis, stay the hell back until we know if we have a monster on our hands. You’re not getting hurt on my watch.”
I rolled my eyes, but returned to my position by the wall. Charlotte swallowed once, and then counted to three. She pulled the stake, and my breath caught as the rod unceremoniously slipped free as though it’d been stuck in nothing more than sand. My lungs kept the air trapped as Terry separated the vamp’s lips and poured bottle after bottle into his mouth. Slowly his skin started pushing away from the bones and plumping up. His face gradually took on the appearance of a live human rather than a skeleton. By the time Terry opened the fourth bottle, the splotchy skin we could see on his face, hands, and torso became a smooth porcelain color, and his hair brightened from a dull dark brown to a shinier caramel color. Life sparked in his blue eyes, and he blinked.
His hand twitched.
His fangs slipped out.
His eyes moved slowly around the room as he took in his surroundings from his prone position.
His gaze landed on me and held, something flickering in those sky-blue orbs.
“Sophia?” he croaked.
My eyes widened, and the air finally whooshed out of my lungs. Oh, crap. Did Mom do this to him? Everyone else’s focus flew to me then back to him.
“Sophia,” he said again. This time it wasn’t a question, but I shook my head.
He struggled to sit up, but he hadn’t regained his full strength yet. He settled on an elbow, still not taking his eyes off me.
“Yes,” he insisted. “You’re Sophia. But why are you clothed so oddly?”
He spoke with a heavy British accent, and his tone was not accusing or frightening, but merely perplexed.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not Sophia.”
He blinked. His jaw muscle popped. A harder edge entered his voice. “Why do you deny me?”
I looked at Tristan, but he only offered a small shrug.
“Because I’m not Sophia. I’m Alexis, her daughter.”
H
is brows pushed together as confusion filled his face. Then his features contorted with indignation.
“Why do you attempt to deceive me?” he demanded. “Why do you tell lies? This is not proper behavior.”
“Hey, man,” Tristan said, “be careful what you say to her. That’s my wife you’re talking to.”
The vamp’s face grew red as he twisted in his coffin to face Tristan, and his petulance turned to outrage. “Your wife? How dare you!”
Tristan raised a brow, which I knew meant his patience was wearing thin.
“Wait a minute,” I said, taking a step closer, and the vampire’s attention swung to me again. “Who are you? How do you know my mom?”
“Who am I?” he nearly yelled. “I am Winston!”
Charlotte gasped. “Oh, dear God. Get your mother on the phone.”
Did she know him? But how? Nineteen-thirteen was before Mom’s Ang’dora, which meant before she knew anything about the Amadis or Daemoni, including knowing Char.
“Now!” the warlock barked.
I cocked my head as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pressed the icon to FaceTime Mom, thinking Charlotte wanted this guy to see that Mom and I were two different people. The vampire shrunk away when he saw the gadget and eyed it with a mix of suspicion and curiosity in his expression. He’d come from a different time and had no idea when he was, let alone where. But at least the interesting object had calmed his irritation with me.
“Is everything okay, honey?” Mom asked as soon as she answered. A common greeting these days. She sat at her desk, and the angle of her image made me think she’d answered on her iPad.
“Um . . . I don’t know. Do you know this guy?” I switched the phone’s camera to the back lens to show the recently revived vampire. “He says his name is Winston.”
Mom’s face blanched.
“For the love of the Angels,” she whispered, and she grabbed the outside of the screen, her face coming closer to the camera. Followed by a crash and the screen showing the ceiling of her office.