Rogue

by Karen Lynch

  I walked to the other side of the living room to stay out of the way while the others faced the door. Geoffrey opened the basement door, and he and Abigail went silently down the stairs. I held my breath along with everyone else in the room as we waited for something to happen.

  A girl’s scream cut through the silence, followed by a few thumps and what sounded like a computer monitor hitting the floor. I thought I heard the rattle of chains before a screech of pain came from below. What the hell were they doing down there?

  “We have her,” Geoffrey called.

  Everyone relaxed and a few warriors looked in my direction. They were wondering how I’d known there was a vampire in the basement, but no one voiced the question.

  “What will they do with her?” I asked Nikolas, who had come to stand beside me.

  “They’ll confine her and wait until she gets hungry to see if she’ll talk.”

  I thought about Nate’s short time as a vampire. Tristan had planned to do the same to him to get him to talk. Other techniques didn’t work on vampires. Hunger drove them insane.

  An SUV pulled into the driveway, its lights splashing across the carnage on the lawn. The other Vegas team had gone out on patrol before the attack, and it looked like someone had called them back. The four warriors filed into the house and surveyed the damage to their place.

  “Goddamn!” said a burly brunette with short cropped hair. “We missed all the action.”

  A blond warrior pushed past him and headed for the stairs. “Fuck the action,” he growled. “If my Martin has a scratch on it, I’m going to find some vampire ass to kick.”

  I looked at one of the others. “His Martin?”

  The brunette chuckled. “His guitar. Elvis gave it to him. Jackson loves that thing.”

  “He knew Elvis? For real?”

  “Yep. Even used to jam with him.”

  As I was trying to wrap my mind around that tidbit, the warriors started cleaning up and securing the place. Nikolas told me they’d pack up and move to a new location tomorrow because this place was compromised.

  Jordan stood in the middle of the living room looking at the vampire bodies. “Shouldn’t we call for a cleanup crew?”

  Jackson bounded down the stairs. “We are the cleanup crew. The van’s out back.”

  I grimaced at the grisly task ahead of us. “What will you do with all the bodies?”

  “We’ll take them out to the desert and burn them.” He looked at the bodies in the living room. “With this many it’s going to take at least two trips.”

  Someone brought the van around to the front of the house, and the warriors quickly loaded bodies into it. They got rid of the bodies on the lawn first and then the ones in the living room. Jackson had been right. It was definitely going to take two trips.

  After that, some of the warriors pinned a tarp over the living room window to keep out the wind and rain. Not that it would help much. The room was pretty much trashed. And cold. I went over to one of the warriors who lived in the house. “Hey, do you guys have something dry Jordan and I can borrow?” Not that their clothes would fit me, but anything was better than being wet and cold.

  “We had a female warrior staying here two months ago, and she left some stuff behind. Upstairs, first door on the right. Bottom drawer in the dresser.”

  “Thanks.”

  We found two pairs of jeans and several tank tops. They were a good fit for Jordan, but I had to roll up the bottoms of the jeans. I also grabbed a sweater and a pair of the guy’s socks to replace my damp ones. My boots weren’t too bad, so I pulled them on again.

  Jordan found a first aid kit and cleaned and bandaged the scratches on my shoulder. They weren’t too deep and the bleeding had already stopped. Of course, no Mohiri first aid kit is complete without gunna paste. This time, I didn’t complain as I took the awful stuff.

  Nikolas found us a few minutes later. “The storm is letting up, and the pilot says we can take off in an hour or so. I’m going to call Tristan, and then we’ll head over to the airport.”

  “Okay.” I rubbed my chest where a small knot of ice lingered despite my warm clothes. I was so ready to put some distance between me and that vampire.

  The vampire had other ideas.

  I was in the kitchen grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge when a girl’s scream came from the basement. Seconds later, something small and fast sped up the stairs, coming to a halt when it saw the warriors blocking its way.

  The vampire, who had been a teenage girl before she was changed, stared in panic before she darted for the nearest opening. Warriors shouted as they moved to intercept her. She wasn’t as fast as some of them, but her size and agility made up for that. And like most people I’d encountered, she went for what looked like the easiest target in the room. Me.

  There was no time to think. I grabbed a dagger that one of the warriors had left on the island, and threw it as the vampire flew through the kitchen doorway. She screamed, clawing at the silver hilt protruding from her abdomen as she staggered toward me.

  In that moment, I was struck by how young she looked, and I felt a pang of sadness for the girl whose life had been stolen from her. She could have been any one of the girls from my old school. Her speed before I’d stopped her told me she’d been a vampire for at least a few decades. Did she have a family who missed her and still grieved the loss of their daughter or sister? She was going to die here and they would never know what had become of her.

  She ripped out the dagger and leapt at me, her fangs and claws bared.

  I twisted to one side and brought my fist up against her throat in a strike that might have crushed her windpipe had she been human. It was enough to surprise her, and that was all I needed. I wrapped one arm around her throat in a choke hold and pulled her back against me with my other hand squarely over her heart. Her body twitched as I gave her just enough of a jolt to incapacitate her.

  Every instinct in me screamed for me to end her, but I stopped myself before I could do that. We needed her alive so we could find out how the vampires had found this place. The Mohiri were very good at keeping their safe house locations a secret, but somehow the vampires had found us tonight. If our warriors were going to remain safe, we had to know how we had been compromised.

  The vampire sagged against me as one very aggravated Mohiri male pushed past the warriors crowding the wide kitchen doorway. “Damn it, Sara. There are a dozen warriors here. You couldn’t let one of them handle this?”

  I scowled at him over her head. “Look at her, Nikolas. She’s even smaller than I am. Do you think I can’t handle one little vampire?”

  “Don’t answer that, my man,” Jackson said, shaking his head. “It’s a trap.”

  Nikolas glowered at the blond warrior who seemed totally unfazed. He must have been the first person I hadn’t seen shrink from one of Nikolas’s scowls.

  Jordan had wormed her way to the front of the crowd. She grinned and gave me two thumbs up.

  The vampire moaned and Nikolas took a step forward. “We need to get her secured again before she comes to. How the hell did she escape in the first place?”

  Geoffrey came forward. “She picked the lock on the shackles. I don’t know how she did it. Most vampires can’t handle silver that long.”

  “Desperation will make you do a lot of things you couldn’t do before,” I said. If she hadn’t been a blood-sucking monster, I might have been impressed by her survival instinct.

  Geoffrey and one of the other warriors came forward. “Good job, Sara. We’ll take her now.”

  The vampire woke up as I was handing her off to Geoffrey. She stared at the two warriors reaching for her then looked up at me. Terror filled her eyes, and she snarled and began to twist in my grasp. I zapped her again and she went limp.

  “That’s some trick,” Geoffrey said.

  “You should see me pull a rabbit from a hat.”

  He smiled as he and the other warrior took the vampire by the arms. “We�
�ll make sure this one doesn’t get loose again. Not sure if she’s worth keeping, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Some vampires break. Most don’t. After a while you can tell the ones that will.”

  “Then why waste your time with her?” Jordan asked.

  “Because they can’t take the chance of not getting information out of her,” Nikolas said as the two warriors started to drag the vampire from the kitchen.

  “Wait.” An idea came to me, one that Nikolas was not going to like. “Maybe I can get something out of her.”

  Geoffrey stopped and looked back at me. “How?”

  Nikolas shook his head. “No.”

  “Nikolas, you said they need information. And it’s not like she can hurt me.”

  He laid his hands on my shoulders, his eyes troubled. “You don’t have the stomach for torture, and that’s what it will take.”

  “Maybe not.” I bit my lip because I knew how he was going to react to my next sentence. “I could connect with the demon.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. “Absolutely not. Do I need to remind you what happened the last time you did that?”

  “No, but I’m a lot stronger than I was that time, and I know what to expect now.”

  “No.”

  I placed my hands on his chest. “I know you’re worried, but I’ve come so far since that thing with Nate. I’ve spent months working with Aine and Eldeorin, and I know what I can do.”

  “What are they talking about?” Jackson asked. No one answered him.

  Nikolas stared at me for a long moment. Then he let out a pained sigh and lowered his forehead to mine. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I promise.”

  “I mean it, Sara,” he growled softly. He pulled back so I could see the worry in his eyes. “If I have to sit by a hospital bed for another two days, I really will lock you up.”

  I gave him a reassuring smile. “That won’t happen. Trust me.”

  He released my shoulders. “What do we need to do?”

  “Just lay her here on the floor, and I’ll do the rest.”

  Geoffrey and the other warrior looked surprised when Nikolas asked them to put the vampire on the kitchen floor, but they did it without question. After my display on the lawn tonight, they all knew I was different, and they looked curious to see what I was going to do next.

  “I need some room to do this. Can you all move to the living room?”

  Once the kitchen was empty except for me and the vampire, I knelt beside her prone body and laid my hands on her chest. I didn’t even have to call my power forth. It rushed to my hands as soon as it sensed a demon close by, and I had to hold it back to keep from killing the vampire outright.

  The vampire’s eyes opened and her mouth twisted in a scream as I pushed my power slowly into her chest. My aim was to make contact with the vamhir demon, not kill it like I had done with Nate. It didn’t take me long to find the gelatinous membrane surrounding the heart, and I touched it to let it know I was there. The demon trembled and shrank away from me, but there was nowhere it could go.

  I remembered every detail of my experience with Nate as if it had happened yesterday. Drawing on that knowledge, I let my power envelop the demon and called on the same force I had tapped into the first time I’d done this. The demon convulsed, and I could feel its scream inside my skull.

  No! screeched an alien voice that was not my own.

  You want it to stop? Tell me how you knew about this house.

  It fell silent for a long moment and I began to think I’d imagined the voice. I gave the demon another jab.

  Hurts! it howled.

  It’s going to get a lot worse. I poked it again to make my point.

  Stop!

  Not until you tell me what I want to know. How did you find us?

  Silence.

  I zapped it again. The demon screamed and a shudder went through it. Stop.

  Answer my question. I felt no empathy for this creature, and I was willing to keep this up as long as I had to.

  The demon finally realized that, too. Followed hunters.

  You followed us from where?

  Not you. Followed hunters from casino.

  When?

  Days.

  How many days ago? I asked.

  Two.

  Two days ago? That meant they had been planning this attack all along, and they’d had no idea the rest of us would be here. Geoffrey was not going to be happy to learn that his team had been followed right back to their safe house.

  Stop now! the demon cried.

  Fine. I loosened my hold, but immediately tightened it again. The demon howled, and I waited for it to stop to ask my next question.

  Who is the Master?

  Have no Master.

  Liar. All vampires have a master.

  Not true. Many do not.

  I applied more pressure and it struggled uselessly. But you’ve met a Master, haven’t you? I want to know his name.

  He has no name. Stop. Hurts.

  Then tell me where he is. Tell me something.

  Can’t.

  I zapped it again and the membrane started to harden. I can do this as long as I need to.

  The demon’s scream filled my head. Then a picture formed in my mind of a stately stone house with turrets that made me think of a castle. Excitement rippled through me. But then the image disappeared before it could come completely into focus.

  Where was that? Show it again.

  Can’t. Hurts.

  Show me!

  The demon began to scream and shake until I thought it was going to explode. I realized then that I was getting nothing else out of it and I pulled back.

  From out of nowhere, another image floated into my mind, faded and grainy like an old photograph. For a second, I thought the demon was trying to show me something else. I looked at the image and saw a dark-haired couple sitting on a beach with a little girl between them who couldn’t be more than ten. The three of them were laughing and the girl was pointing at the person whose memory I was seeing. The girl looked vaguely familiar...

  I knew the human remained after the vamhir took control of the body; my experience with Nate had proven that. But aside from Nate, I’d never thought about the human souls trapped inside of vampires. Nate remembered most of his short time as a vampire except for the things he had been compelled to forget. He still struggled with the memories. It had to be a special kind of hell to be trapped like that inside your own body, knowing death was the only way you would be free.

  I looked at the memory again, and this time I could feel the pain and longing that clung to it. The demon had taken the girl from her family a long time ago, and she still grieved for them and the life stolen from her.

  My chest tightened, and I felt a tear run down my face. What is wrong with me? Am I actually crying for a vampire?

  No, not for the vampire. My heart ached for the teenage girl who had suffered so much. I wished I could help her, but the kindest thing I could do was to end her horrible existence.

  Another memory floated toward me. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to feel more of the girl’s pain. But then a familiar voice filled my mind, and I cringed from my own memories of it. Hello, sweet thing. I forced myself to look at the memory she was trying to show me, and a shard of fear pierced my heart when I saw Eli’s dark eyes and charming smile. The vampire who had tried to kill me was the same one who had taken this girl.

  I felt it then, the delicate connection forging between me and the nameless girl who had been taken years before I was born. The vampire and I were mortal enemies, but the girl and I shared something that went beyond that. Our lives had been changed forever by the same monster. But I was free and she still suffered.

  Suddenly, I understood what I needed to do. Whether it worked or not didn’t matter. I had the power in me to set this tormented soul free, and I couldn’t refuse her that. I wasn’t sure if I believed in fate, but it felt like some grea
ter power had brought this vampire to me.

  The demon trembled violently and the heart stuttered as I gathered my power.

  No! it screamed. You said you’d stop.

  I changed my mind, I said without remorse.

  Then I struck.

  Chapter 22

  “Goddamnit, Sara, do not do this to me again.”

  Disoriented, I opened my eyes and looked up into Nikolas’s distressed ones. “Why am I on the floor?”

  He crushed me against his chest. “Fifty years. I’m locking you up for the next fifty goddamn years.”

  “Can’t breathe,” I gasped, and he eased me back down to the floor.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Great.” I was still trying to figure out what I was doing down there, and why he was looking at me that way. “My butt is cold.”

  Relief flashed in his eyes and a smile touched his mouth. “We can’t have that.” In the next instant, he was sitting on the floor with me cradled in his lap. “Better?”

  “Much better.” I leaned my head against his chest, suddenly tired. God, what a night. First, I met the mother I hadn’t seen in sixteen years. If that wasn’t enough, we were ambushed by vampires. And then –

  My head jerked up. The vampire girl!

  Someone was sobbing, and it was the most heartwrenching sound I had ever heard. I twisted in Nikolas’s arms until I could see behind him. In the corner, curled into a tight ball, was the vampire. Only she wasn’t a vampire anymore. The absence of cold in my chest told me I’d done it again.

  I tried to go to her, but Nikolas held me back. “It’s not safe.”

  “Yes, it is.” I met his worried gaze. “Trust me. She won’t hurt anyone else.”

  It was another minute before he reluctantly released me. I crawled over to the girl who cowered and cried even harder. “Shhh, it’s okay,” I crooned softly. “You’re safe now and no one is going to hurt you.”

  Her entire body shook from her sobs, and the agony in her voice was almost too much to bear. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through or how terrifying this was for her. All I could do was try to help her through it.