Dee put a warm hand on her arm, comforting even through the thick leather of her jacket. “What are you thinking? It’s like you’re a million miles away.”
She glanced at her before returning her gaze to the road. She didn’t see the highway that was a long ribbon of black, but a country dirt road lined by snow-covered trees. She answered honestly. “Not a million miles away. More like a century.”
***
Despite the urgency of their trip, the conversation Dee and Sasha were having was going far deeper than she’d intended, but it was just the way she rolled. One thought turned into a question, which turned into another question, and so on. It was the same way with her novels. A very simple observation could take her down a trail that ultimately ended up becoming a full-blown book. Or a novel could be going one way, and then all of a sudden it took a left turn that Dee didn’t see coming, and the whole story changed. Yeah, it was like that.
Right now an off-the-cuff question had led to another and another because the woman next to her was incredibly interesting. Dee wasn’t naïve enough not to realize that part of her interest was the draw she felt toward her. It had been undeniable, even before she ran into her naked outside the bathroom. That was pretty intense, although Sasha was even more alluring once she slid back into tight leather pants. That kind of vision was usually relegated to fantasy. It was pretty cool when fantasy met reality and took her breath away.
Dee was afraid, though, that she’d taken her curiosity a little too far, because Sasha had suddenly gone awfully quiet. As hard as it was for her to do, it might be time for her to close her mouth as well. She’d done enough damage, and they still had the whole night to get through. God only knew what was out there waiting for them. It was scary in the daylight; it had to be downright terrifying now that the night allowed the vampires to roam freely. She almost snorted. Funny how quick she’d shifted from nonbeliever to completely on board. It was kind of the “once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it” situations.
Dee stayed quiet as long as she could while waiting for Sasha to say something. “I really was sincere when I said you look great.”
“I appreciate your candor.”
“But?” Something under her words made Dee wish she’d kept her big mouth shut. She really did suck at social interactions.
“But I don’t thrive on compliments.”
Okay. That wasn’t exactly what she was thinking. Besides, someone as beautiful as Sasha had to be accustomed to routine compliments. Dee got them on her writing. That was part of being a best-selling author. People wanted to be around her. To ask her about her writing and how she got her ideas. If anyone mentioned her looks, it was usually to ask how she got her hair to stand up like that or about the various colors she liked to use just to shake things up.
She squeezed Sasha’s arm lightly and then let her hand drop away. “Just an observation. I’ll try to keep it in check.”
“Don’t. Not because of me. I find your candor refreshing.”
“Where did you go just now?” She probably shouldn’t ask, but she once again couldn’t help herself. Sasha had a faraway look on her face that was too intriguing to let go.
She might have gone too far this time because there was a lengthy silence. Then Sasha started to talk. “I was remembering my home and my family.”
“You’re not from here.” It wasn’t really a question. Something about her radiated a vibe that was most definitely not Pacific Northwest.
“No. I was born far from here, and I haven’t seen my family in a very long time.”
She sensed the hesitation in Sasha and felt a little bad for pushing. It was hard not to, because damn if she wasn’t fascinating as all get-out. “Sorry again, it’s the writer in me. We ask questions when it would be better if we just shut up.”
“After we get through tonight, I’ll tell you all about me and my family.”
Cool, she thought. She said, “So, where are we going? When we left, you didn’t really say.” It was time to take the conversation onto neutral ground before she had to take her foot out of her mouth yet again.
“The city.”
She almost said “duh” and then caught herself. “Yes. You said that earlier. I guess what I’m asking is more specifically, where in the city and why? It’s a pretty big place. Can you narrow it down?”
“I have to see a man about a horse.”
Obviously Sasha had a plan she didn’t want to share with Dee. She couldn’t broadcast her mistrust any clearer if she tried. In a way Dee didn’t blame her. They’d known each other about ten minutes. Just because Dee’s instinct was to trust her, she couldn’t fault Sasha for being more cautious even if it did hurt. “A horse?”
“It’s something my father liked to say. I’ve got to meet someone.”
“Are they going to help?” One guy wouldn’t be enough to stop the tide of what she’d seen earlier. Just because the whole thing might be way out of her wheelhouse didn’t mean she was reading it wrong. It would take an army of men, women, and every other preternatural creature they could bring over to their side to stop what was happening.
“More than help, he’s going to pull the rug right out from underneath the ass who put this entire mess into motion.”
She still wasn’t convinced. “Hard to believe one guy can put a stop to even a tenth of what I saw today.”
“He won’t.”
So why were they on their way to meet this man and his horse? Getting a straight and coherent answer out of Sasha was proving to be a challenge. No worries. She was up to it. “I don’t understand.”
“He won’t stop anything. I will.”
***
Katrina had answered the first calls that came in on the phones in Eli’s bags. Each one made her smile grow. On the roof of the hotel’s parking garage with Eli standing next to her, she could see all over the city. It was an excellent vantage point to observe her plans in action. A light wind blew across her face, and above her the sky stretched a canopy of twinkling stars.
After being banished to the shadows for eons, it was refreshing to stand tall and open. It reminded her of when she was human and could come and go as she pleased. Of course, in those days she could actually stand in the sunshine and run outside all day long. She missed the daytime, sort of. Back when she was human, she was a nobody. A scrawny little street urchin who had to scrabble just to eat. She shuddered, thinking about the things that had happened to her as she’d survived on the Moscow streets. Poverty was not a pleasant memory. Nor was her weak, pathetic mother and alcoholic father. Life was better on the street than going back to the hovel that passed as her childhood home. If not for the beautiful woman with the long golden hair who took her in, she’d have died young out on those cruel streets.
She’d believed at first that she’d been dropped into kindness and luxury. She soon found out that things were not quite as rosy as one would have thought inside the walls of the beautiful home on the Moskva River. From the outside it had been like a palace to Katrina. The first time she walked up those steps, she’d believed that she was going to be a princess. In a way, she was. She had everything a young girl could want. Beautiful dresses, combs for her hair, perfume, and a feather bed. She was taught to read and to write, to speak as a noble rather than a pauper. There was always plenty of food and fresh, clean water to drink. That was the beauty.
But the darkness came when the sun fell, both literally and figuratively. She was no longer subject to the kind of abuse common to young girls on the street or the fists and kicks of a drunken father. No, her body was untouched in that way. She was wanted for something more than her nubile flesh. It was her blood her hostess desired. No, needed like an alcoholic needs a drink. Bought and paid for with a life off the streets.
For ten years Katrina submitted to the whims of her benefactor. She wasn’t a literal prisoner yet was captive nonetheless. Having experienced the luxury and relative safety of the grand house, she couldn’t return to the horrors
outside it. More accurately, she didn’t want to return to the streets and realized that an opportunity existed if she was patient. She stayed year after year—learning, maturing, and planning—until the day she knew it had to end, one way or the other. She was not a goat there to be milked. She had grown into a woman—strong, tall, and beautiful—and she had repaid her pseudomother/mentor a hundred times over for everything she had given her. The day had arrived for the present arrangement to end.
And it did. She thought it would be at the point of the wooden stake she’d made and secreted in her room for almost two years. It had taken her that long to work up the courage to stand up and make her move. Surprisingly, it was far simpler than she’d anticipated. She had built up the confrontation in her mind until it was something of great magnitude. The reality was far different when she stood before her benefactor in the grand salon. In an instant, everything flipped. She didn’t have to kill her. Not that night anyway. For her wish to be free was granted and, along with it, a gift: immortality. Her mentor, her soon-to-be maker, had simply been waiting for the day Katrina came to her. As she would later learn, it had been a test of sorts.
She had taken to the gift as if born to the darkness instead of two pathetic excuses for human beings. Inside of a year she grew more powerful than her maker, and it was then she used the wooden stake. She no longer needed her, and the vampire who’d so freely preyed upon a child had a debt to pay. Katrina took great joy in exacting the payment. By then, no one questioned the death of the eccentric noble who lived in the beautiful home, for they all believed Katrina was her daughter. She let them, just as she let them transfer all the noblewoman’s wealth, property, and titles to her. She had felt like nothing in the world could ever stop her, and indeed nothing had in the subsequent years.
She felt much like that tonight. For a very long time she’d had to play the game the Consortium dictated. It was for the benefit of all of them, they told her. It was for their safety, they told her. It was the only way, they told her.
Well, she had something to tell them: Fuck You. Her first strike was to take one hundred percent control of her life. With their bodies on the floor of her suite just waiting for the light of day to turn them into dust, strike one was an unqualified success. She would now do as she pleased, when she pleased, and how she pleased. No more consultation with the Elders, who couldn’t get past their own histories to see the future.
Step two was rolling in like an incoming snowstorm. The humans would soon bow to her. At least the humans who survived. Then she would assemble the best and the brightest, and once and for all they would discover how to give her back the daylight. If the scientists working for them now could figure out a compound to incapacitate the majority of the human population, then they could figure out how to let her walk in the sunshine once more. It would be done, and then nothing would ever stop her again.
“Have you found her?” She’d made this Eli’s number-one priority after they were able to discover the toxin that was perfect to launch their initial attack. She hadn’t needed him to work on that after they isolated the necessary chemical. It then became his mission to find her.
Eli was standing next to Katrina, his head moving left to right as he scanned the city below. “Yes.”
The excitement generated by that single word made her tingle all the way to the tips of her fingers. It was almost as exciting as the day she put the wooden stake through her maker’s heart. Almost. “Where?”
“She’ll be at Duncan Gardens in—” He glanced down at his watch. Such a pretentious piece that he wore. His concern about his clothing and accessories was an unnecessary waste of time and effort. They were always together, and no one paid any attention to him when she was nearby. “Twenty minutes.”
“Duncan Gardens?” She didn’t know what it was or where it was. She was here now only to settle the score, not sightsee. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. The air force base was worth a look. With its fleet of planes and young, nubile airmen and women, it was a treasure trove of resources. She was going to be able to leverage all of it to her advantage.
First things first. Dropping that bitch was number one. Then she’d marshal the loyal out at the base to keep the momentum going. It was a big world out there, and just because she’d steamrolled both Spokane and Seattle didn’t mean the rest of the world would fall in line as quickly and easily as she’d like. Regardless of any roadblocks, it would happen. With all the resources becoming available, it was only a matter of time before everyone came into line.
“Where is Duncan Gardens?” It better be close.
“Up in Manito Park.”
“Not helping,” she snapped. He was being purposely difficult, and she didn’t appreciate it. Though she’d never shared with him the reason behind her obsession with making this meeting happen, he was nonetheless aware of how important it was to her.
He took her by the shoulders and turned her a hundred and eighty degrees. She was now looking south toward the section of the city known as the South Hill. “Up there.”
Chapter Seventeen
When they reached the center of the city, Dee spoke up, and what she said didn’t really surprise Sasha. “Doesn’t it seem kind of quiet to you?”
Sasha shook her head. “No. This is what I was expecting.”
Dee turned to her. “Really? I mean when we were out earlier today, it was like mania had struck everywhere. There was military around every corner, and bodies and…”
“It was horrible.”
“Yeah. It was horrible. Even with my imagination it was beyond anything I could make up.”
A chill went through her. “I’ve seen something very much like this before.”
“What? You’ve seen this happen before. How can that be? When? Where?”
Flashes of the scene in a town in the northern regions of Canada came to her. The beautiful town surrounded by forests and rivers had nearly been obliterated. “Five years ago a small town in northern Canada was besieged. At the time I couldn’t figure out what was going on. So many dead, and survivors turned. It wiped out the entire town.”
A frown darkened Dee’s face. “I never heard anything about something like that.”
“A machine was in motion, and I don’t think word of it leaked to any news media. I didn’t understand at the time. I believe I do now.”
“You want to share with me? I don’t get it at all. I don’t get any of this.”
She’d seen the aftermath firsthand, and what she’d seen had stayed with her. “It was beyond terrible. It was an abomination. Just as it is now.”
“Spit it out. What happened up there?”
“I believe it was a testing ground for what you’re seeing here. Almost everyone in that town was either killed or turned. It all makes terrible sense now. They were seeing how it would work before they set it loose on everyone.”
“That sounds like a Hitler move, and I still don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand?”
Dee was quiet for a moment before she asked, “How did you find out about it when no one else in the world knew? Unless you were part of it.”
Sasha snapped her head around to look at Dee, and at the same time a shot of anger surged. It was mixed with feelings of hurt that Dee would even consider her that callous and cruel. “No. I would never be part of something like that. I know what it’s like to be erased, and I would never do that to anyone.” She didn’t add that she would cheerfully erase one person, because that was her secret to keep.
“So tell me about this town and what it means to this…” Dee motioned out the window.
“Forces have been at work far longer than you can imagine. Their goal is complete domination, drawing down the mist that separates the vampires from the humans so the vampires can rule.”
“Why? I mean I now know that we’ve existed side by side for centuries, and even though it’s still hard to grasp, I’m getting there. Everything has gone along just peachy, so
why are they attacking now? It doesn’t make any sense. Why not let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak?”
“Think about all the power struggles when kings and queens ruled countries. How somebody was always in the shadows who felt they were better and more entitled to the throne. They would do anything, including murdering husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, even children, all in the name of gaining power. In a nutshell, that’s the current thought pattern of those who head the vampire universe.”
It was the easiest way she could think of to explain a situation that was multi-layered and incredibly complicated. It was also an accurate way to explain it. The vast majority, ruling or not, felt they were far superior to humans, though they all started their existence in just that form. Century after century of existing on this planet had infused them with arrogance that had finally reached the point of explosion.
Sasha had suspected this day would come sooner rather than later. She’d seen it happen when she was a human. As a vampire, she’d been watching it build. She’d been blindsided when her family was destroyed in the pursuit of power, and after she’d realized what this new existence provided her, she’d vowed never to be in that position again. It became as important to be ready for the day it arrived as it was to be prepared to exact revenge. The two were not mutually exclusive.
The backdrop of her company had given her the perfect vehicle to put her in her current position. She’d always been smart, and the security firm enabled her to use her intelligence and monitor the pulse of both the human and vampire worlds. It wasn’t a perfect plan, as evidenced by the recent knowledge of her two employees’ deceit, but it was a good one nonetheless. Sasha’s cell phone rang, and she glanced down, shocked to see it was Crystal. She pulled the car to the curb on Riverside, put it in park, and placed the cell phone to her ear.
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