by Rye Brewer
The four of us watched until we could no longer risk revealing ourselves, then pressed ourselves against the stone wall several paces from the gate, deep in shadow.
A series of high-pitched beeps told me Gil entered a code on his side of the gate before stepping through. He went straight to a sleek, low-slung sports car parked in the narrow alley and drove away without so much as a look around him.
It was time to course again, it seemed, since none of us would be satisfied with simply letting him go about his business. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so secretive about it…
We arrived at a flashy, upscale restaurant not ten minutes later, stopping several doors down when we noticed his car coming to a stop. A valet took care of it while he walked with that same confident gait up to and through the restaurant’s doors.
“Come on.” Cari ran ahead, the three of us rushing to catch up to her.
We watched through the plate glass windows as Gil was led through a quiet, tasteful dining room to a private room in the back. Someone waited in that room; I could just make out the shape of a person waiting at a table before the door closed.
“I guess it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t let us in without a reservation, huh?” Cari whispered, sounding wistful.
“I guess there’s nothing to do now but wait,” I said, watching her closely. There was no telling what she was going through.
24
Cari
I used to be Daddy’s Girl.
One look at him, and it all came flooding back. All the good times, long before things went south. When it would never have occurred to me that my daddy was anything but a good, kind, handsome, wonderful man. My hero.
Afternoons spent on his shoulders as we trekked through the amusement park or the zoo. Trips to Disney World, weeks at the beach or in the mountains. He’d taught me how to ride a bike, how to tie my shoes. How to read, endless hours spent at my bedside every night while we went through my bedtime stories until I could read them to him rather than the other way around.
I could do no wrong in his eyes. Not back then, anyway.
I knew about the second divorce, so it was no surprise that my Wicked Stepmother wasn’t with him—though it was surprising that a man still so handsome and clearly well-off would dine alone. Then again, he wasn’t alone, was he?
Where were the kids? I barely even remembered their names, and I hated myself for it. Lisa? Gregory? Max? I certainly couldn’t remember how old any of them were.
They were my brothers and sister, for God’s sake. Even if he had never seen it that way. I could’ve tried harder. I should’ve tried harder.
Regret gripped my heart until it hurt.
It had been my fault, too. Not only theirs—though neither of my parents were completely innocent. Mom had been just fine with my deciding to live with her, just as she’d later been fine with my moving out when she got remarried, too.
All I’d had left at that point was Dad’s Aunt Delores. I’d lived with her and been happy all through high school—until she died two weeks before graduation. A heart attack in her sleep.
I had found the pearl necklace she had bought for a graduation present weeks later, while I was cleaning out her bedroom. I’d cried the whole afternoon, never more alone than at that moment.
When all the dust settled, I’d decided to go out on my own. Forget my absentee parents, forget everything. Aunt Delores had left me a little money, enough for an apartment and to support myself until I found a job. I had even been taking online college courses when I’d crossed paths with Gage.
All of that was so far away, far enough that I would never get any of it back.
And my father was in a restaurant across from where I waited for him to exit, but he might as well have been a million miles away.
After all, there was no chance of revealing myself to him. No way.
We didn’t say much to each other, any of us, as we waited. I was too busy brooding, reliving the past with all its mistakes. Wondering if Dad ever regretted letting me slip away from him. And I got the feeling that my friends were afraid to speak to me, like I might crack if handled too carelessly.
“There he is,” Gage whispered, nudging me.
Two hours had passed, more or less, two hours of chic, beautiful people walking back and forth, going about their fabulous evening in fabulous Rome.
I hated them.
We watched my father leave the restaurant. He looked perturbed—I recognized the way his forehead wrinkled when he frowned, the way his thick eyebrows drew together.
“No sign of the person he was dining with,” Naomi observed. “Damn it.”
“What would it matter if we saw them?” Raze asked, and it was a sensible question.
I wouldn’t know how to identify anyone my father might be involved with, and whatever he was involved with was probably none of my concern.
I only wanted to know he was all right—which, of course, meant I wondered what was so special about this person he’d dined with that he didn’t want anybody else to know about them. So, maybe it was slightly my concern.
We followed him back to the villa, reaching the little side gate long before he arrived at it. Just like before, we waited in the shadows, this time under the branches of an umbrella pine which overhung the wall.
Dad was at the gate.
“Watch this.” Before any of us could ask what we were supposed to watch, Raze coursed away to where Dad entered the code into the panel in the wall next to the gate. He was so fast about it, I couldn’t even see him—except the way the breeze he created ruffled my father’s hair.
Dad slipped through the gate, and Raze was back with us in a moment.
“How did you do that?” Gage asked with his mouth hanging open. “You were so fast, I couldn’t even make you out!”
Our vampire vision made it possible for us to see each other when we coursed, but even Gage’s vision had failed.
Raze shrugged, grinning. “Just something I’ve been working on. No big deal. And it got us the code, if we want to use it.”
I could’ve kissed him. “Yes. I want to go in. I’ll die of curiosity otherwise.” I wanted to know who he lived with, whether he was happy. Whether the people with him were happy. Who were the guards and why did he need them? If we coursed around and hid in the shadows, we could avoid notice.
“You’re not going in there alone, you know,” Gage informed me, though he didn’t sound like he thought going in at all was a good idea. I wasn’t surprised by that; he might even have been right.
“I’ll go, too,” Naomi whispered. Raze nodded his eager agreement.
“All right, lead the way,” I said, stepping aside for Raze since he knew the code.
He entered five digits into the keypad and the gate swung open. Easy as that.
I couldn’t get over the villa. Who lived that way? Why did they? Were the kids living with him? I didn’t see any sign of them as we approached the house, keeping an eye on the guards all the way. They couldn’t see us when we coursed from place to place, darting in and out of the trees. Coming closer to the house every time we moved.
It was so beautiful. So majestic. Bigger than anything I had imagined. I wondered what it would be like to swim in that pool, to stand on one of the balconies and let the breeze run through my hair. To have a bedroom there.
It was probably because I was so wrapped up in bitter envy that I never noticed I was leading us into danger.
There was a popping noise which I realized in the blink of an eye was the releasing of a hook or a pulley. A net fell over the four of us.
“What is this?” Naomi shrieked, clawing at the thing. Raze did, too. We all did. None of us could break the fibers of the netting which hung heavy over us, dragging along the ground.
“Silver,” Gage grunted, “though it doesn’t burn! But it’s too strong.” He pulled as hard as he could—tendons stood out on the side of his neck and the insides of his forearms as he strained—but it was no use. He cou
ldn’t tear it.
Men poured from the house, running to us, surrounding us. I didn’t know which way to look. There were at least two dozen, if not more. We were painfully outnumbered and weakened by the silver in the net.
Gage grabbed for my hand, but one of the men around us pulled me way and stuck me in the neck with something sharp.
Everything went black.
It might have been a minute later or a day later or anything in between when I woke up—and when I did, I was shackled to a wall.
We all were.
I blinked rapidly, trying to bring the room into focus. It was all stone, like a cellar dug out of the bedrock, and windowless. The four of us were spread across the wall with space between us—likely as a way to keep us apart so we couldn’t help each other. Damp, dark, stale. What a miserable place.
“What did your friend tell you about this guy?” That was Raze, obviously asking Naomi in a harsh whisper.
“Nothing!” she hissed. “Only that he lives here. Nothing about him personally.”
“So nothing about why he would have the means and the reason to capture vampires?” he demanded. “He was prepared for this, or his men were. A net we couldn’t break through, shackles we can’t break, injections to knock us out cold. Who is he?”
“Enough,” I moaned as I twisted my wrists and ankles in the shackles, even though Raze had already complained about them being unbreakable. “I can’t hear any more of this right now.”
“Are you all right?” Gage whispered, straining as much as he could to get as close to me as possible. It wasn’t nearly close enough.
“As all right as I could be in this situation, I guess.” I leaned against the wall with a sigh of utter misery.
“What haven’t you told us about your father?” Raze demanded.
“Nothing.” I turned my head, staring at him. “I know nothing about this. I told you everything I know—and I bet he didn’t even have anything to do with this.”
“Oh, come on,” he snarled.
“He couldn’t have! Why would he do something like this? What could he possibly have against us?” I looked to Gage, hoping he would back me up, but he didn’t say a word. My heart sank.
The door opened—a heavy door, slow to swing open—and my father marched into the room. There went my assurances. I sat up straighter, eyes bulging, and my heart raced faster than ever when I saw the men who followed him in.
Men holding syringes.
“Carissa?” Dad stopped dead in his tracks as he glared at me—he turned his head slightly to address the man closest to him. “You didn’t tell me she was one of them!”
“Who is she?” the man asked. Whoever he was, the sound of my father’s anger struck fear in him, judging by the way his voice trembled.
Dad didn’t reply—instead, he said, “Take care of the other three.” I hardly had time to open my mouth in protest before my companions were once again unconscious thanks to an injection in their necks.
“What are you giving them?” I cried out, horrified to see Gage slump over. Like somebody flipped a switch and shut him down. So easy.
My father waved off his men, silent until the door closed and left us alone. “They’re fine. They’ll wake up again, the same as you did.” He crouched before me, his eyes—so much like mine, it hurt—searching me all over. “How is it possible that you’re one of them? Who did this to you? When did it happen?”
“What about you?” I whispered. “What are you doing? What’s this all about? Why?”
He stood, frowning. “That’s not for you to know.”
“You have me shackled to a damn wall, Dad.” I couldn’t help but let my anger shine through—there was plenty of it, too, all of it directed at him. I couldn’t pretend he had nothing to do with this. He was the mastermind. He knew just what he was doing.
“And if you weren’t one of them, you wouldn’t be shackled. You would safe somewhere else, far away. At home, living like a normal young woman.”
“You know nothing about the way my life used to be.”
“Do you think I wouldn’t keep tabs on you?” He actually laughed, throwing his head back. “Oh, Carissa. You have no imagination. I’ve always thought that about you. Look around you, daughter, and see where you are. What’s been done to you. Can you imagine that I don’t have the resources to watch over your life?”
The thought left me shaken. He’d been watching me all along, but he still hadn’t felt compelled to reach out. I was a possession of his, his daughter, his offspring. A piece of property to keep a watchful eye on, nothing more.
“But you didn’t know about me, did you? You didn’t know I was one of them,” I pointed out.
“Oh. I knew.” His eyes were hard. Stony. “I knew you were. I just didn’t know you would show up at my home unannounced. You made it very easy.”
My blood ran cold. “What are you saying?”
“We kill your kind.” His words fell on my ears like boulders, crushing my brain. Your kind. He sounded like he was talking about rodents or worse.
I swallowed over my distaste—and dismay. “Who is we?”
“The Starkers.”
I blinked, waiting for more. When it didn’t come, I demanded, “What is that supposed to mean, then? The Starkers? I’ve never heard of them.”
“I suppose that makes sense, as you’re relatively new to this,” he muttered. “But it doesn’t matter who we are, exactly.”
“I think it does, seeing as how you have us shackled and three of us are unconscious. Tell me.”
He grimaced. “Suffice it to say, I was recruited back in college. I wasn’t certain of exactly what I was agreeing to at first, mind you, but I soon came to understand. It was exciting. I was part of a world I’d never known existed up to that point. I was hunting vampires.”
I shuddered. “All this time? All these years since then? You’ve been a vampire hunter?” He nodded. “But… But you always told me you were a diplomat.”
“A cover,” he sneered, waving a hand. “Again, no imagination, Carissa. Willing to accept things at face value.”
“When they’re delivered by someone I once trusted? Yes, I guess I’m a little gullible.”
He winced. “You make a point. That was cruel of me. You were intended to believe it, or else what’s the point of a cover story? At any rate, now you know.”
“But who are they? How big is this group? Where are they located?” My mind spun with the possibilities, the implications of this.
“You’ve already heard more than enough,” he decided, standing in front of me with his feet planted at shoulder width.
“So,” I whispered, forcing myself to hold his gaze. I wouldn’t flinch. I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Here we are, after all this time. Are you going to kill me? Is this how we’re ending things between us?”
To his credit, he winced. “No. I’ve thought about it quite a bit.”
“I’m glad to hear you had to think about it…” I muttered.
He ignored this. “I don’t want to kill you, Cari. I want to help you. I want to create a cure for this terrible curse.”
This got my attention. “A cure. You? You’re a scientist now?”
He snarled, but held back his temper. Barely. “I have scientists at my disposal. Who do you think concocted a sedative strong enough to knock out a vampire? Who created the silver alloy which served as filament for the netting we used to capture you? They work for me, and I intend to turn their attention to creating a cure.”
He knelt at my side, and his eyes were full of love. I could almost believe he was the same man I once knew. My father. Someone who loved me. Someone who wanted the best for me. He wanted to save me. When he touched my face, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear, I didn’t flinch away.
If anything, it was a comfort.
“I will save you from this,” he whispered. “I know this wasn’t your choice—who would choose it? We can reverse this. I’m c
ertain of it.”
“What about my friends? What about Gage?” My eyes shifted over to where Gage was still slumped over, propped against the wall.
“What about them?”
“Will you kill them?” There was a quaver in my voice I couldn’t disguise. He was a vampire killer—using the word “hunter” was just a way to smooth things over for me. My father accused me of having no imagination, but he was wrong. I could put things together when I had to.
“No.”
I almost fell over in relief. He wouldn’t kill Gage. He would spare him. Thank God.
My father continued, “I need them too much. And so do you, if we’re ever going to find a cure.”
I had never understood, truly understood, the concept of having a rug pulled out from under me. Until this moment.
“You’re going to use them?” I gasped.
“My scientists will use them for testing, and assess their blood after each test is run.” As if it was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. The most obvious.
“You can’t do that!” I shook my head, whimpering, tears now spilling over onto my cheeks. “No, no, you can’t do this to them! They’re not just lab rats, Dad. They’re…”
“Don’t say people,” he warned, standing. “They are not.”
“I’m one of them!” I wept. “I’m no different than they are! How can you say that to me?” I couldn’t see him anymore for the tears which flowed freely down my face, dripping onto my clothes and even the floor around me. “Please, please, don’t do this! I love Gage, Dad. I love him. Doesn’t that matter to you at all? How can you say I’m your daughter and you want to cure me, but not care how I feel about Gage? I would have died if it hadn’t been for him! You don’t know!”
He flinched as if I had hit him, and I realized something then: he didn’t see the way I was, a vampire, as being any better than death.