Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000)

by Maitland, Piper

  Wilkerson knelt beside her. “If I remove the tape, you promise not to scream?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Because I’d hate for Moose to break your arms. That would really make you yell.” Wilkerson ripped off the tape and rubbed his thumb across her mouth. “You have Vivienne’s lips. She left without telling me she was pregnant. The bloody bitch. She took everything.”

  “I’m not your daughter,” Caro said. “Run your tests. You’ll see.”

  “Vivienne and I were never divorced, so legally, you are my daughter. I don’t want your DNA to prove paternity.”

  Hurry, Raphael. Please hurry.

  “If you are Philippe’s spawn, you’ve got the R-99 gene,” Wilkerson said. “I’ll lose a daughter—well, of a sort—but I’ll gain a guinea pig.”

  Moose stepped forward, dragging Caro along. “What’s this about genes, mate?”

  “You’d be bored with the science.” Wilkerson flipped his hand. “In a nutshell, I suspect Caro might be half vampire. My researchers are testing the blood of hybrids. They’re working on a biological agent.”

  “For what?” Moose’s forehead wrinkled.

  “To stop aging. Imagine living forever without having to ingest blood. No light blindness. Walking freely in daylight.” Wilkerson turned to Caro. “And your genes may be at the heart of it.”

  “I’ll have a go at it,” Moose said.

  Wilkerson shook his head. “Sorry, that drug will be contraindicated for vampires.”

  “You’re lying,” Moose said. “You just want to keep it for yourself.”

  “Don’t be wet. If you concentrate the blood of a half vampire and inject it into someone like yourself, it’s fatal. Of course, concentrating hybrid blood requires a state-of-the-art lab. Which I have, of course. Sorry, old chap. I guess you shouldn’t book a trip to Bali just yet.”

  Wilkerson stroked Caro’s cheek. “You are lovely, but it’s hard to look at you. Because you resemble her. Maybe you are Philippe’s child. Just think, he gave you life, and I shall take that life and destroy all of his kind.”

  “You’re mad,” she said.

  “And a wanking liar.” Moose released her arm. “What a load of cack.”

  “I wasn’t speaking to you,” Wilkerson told the vampire. “I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken desert if you hadn’t botched your assignment. All I wanted was a blood sample, not a bloodbath. Besides, you aren’t my confidant. You’re a plonker from the East End.”

  “Shut it, you toffee nose.” Moose sprang onto Wilkerson and bit a plug out of his neck. They fell to the ground and rolled. Wilkerson fumbled in his pocket, blood streaming down the front of his shirt, then dragged out a small pistol. He pulled the trigger. Moose jerked back. A spot of red bloomed on his shirt. The vampire watched it a moment, then laughed.

  “It’ll take more than a fucking .38-caliber to bring me down.”

  “Not if it hits your brain.” Wilkerson raised the pistol. Before he could pull the trigger, Moose bent his legs at the knees and vaulted over the wall. There was a thump on the other side, then a scrabbling over the rocks.

  Caro bolted toward the corridor, but Wilkerson snagged her wrist. His hand was slick with blood. It cascaded down his neck, dark as treacle. “You’re going with me,” he said, and pulled her in the opposite direction, toward the narrow alley that led to the church.

  “No.” She screamed for Raphael and the monks. Wilkerson shoved his hand over her mouth, and she bit his palm. His blood tasted bitter, but she bit deeper. Then she felt the pistol crash against her head. Her ear rang. A warm trickle ran down her neck. He hit her again, and the courtyard spiraled. As she fell, she saw rocks, bush, sky, walls. Pain sliced through her stomach as if she’d swallowed pebbles.

  You will not faint. Her pulse slowed and she sat up. The desert wind whipped her hair, and she heard the distant wail of dogs.

  “Caro?” Jude’s voice rang out from the corridor.

  “No!” The pebbles in her stomach grew into razor-edged rocks. He didn’t have a weapon. “Stay back. Wilkerson’s got a gun.”

  Footsteps echoed over the stones, and then Jude rushed into the courtyard. As she scrambled to her feet, something hard and cold dug into her scalp. The rocks in her belly had coalesced into a boulder that pressed hard against her lungs.

  “Nice of you to show up.” A tight smile creased Wilkerson’s lips. “But we were just leaving.”

  “The hell you are.” Jude leaped in front of Caro.

  Wilkerson squeezed the trigger. The bullet ricocheted against the wall. Jude pushed her from behind, guiding her to the corridor. The gun went off again and again. Jude’s hand fell away from her shoulder. She whirled. His eyes widened as he lurched toward the wall.

  She swallowed. Dear God. Had he been hit? A bullet whizzed past her ear. She grabbed Jude’s arm, trying to hold him up. Red commas spurted out of Jude’s sweater and pattered to the floor. She swallowed hard, pushing down those rocks, and pulled open the edges of his jacket. Blood pulsed through a hole in his shoulder. She mashed her hand against it.

  “Are you all right, lass?” he asked. He didn’t seem to know he’d been hit.

  “She’s fine,” Wilkerson called, aiming the gun. “But you’re toast.”

  Tears burned the backs of her eyes. A surge of adrenaline rippled through her, and she pushed Jude toward the tunnel. She couldn’t think beyond the immediate danger. Jude was bleeding. He needed a doctor.

  Wilkerson fired again. A hole cut through Jude’s leather jacket, and he bent over. Caro cut in front of him and grabbed his elbows. A fist-sized chunk of the sweater had been blown away, and the rest of it was damp and glossy. A high-pitched whistling noise came out of the wound. A needle prick of dread stabbed through her. Oh, God. Had the bullet hit a lung? She pressed her hands over the jetting blood. No, please.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. He coughed, and frothy pink bubbles spilled over his lips. No, he couldn’t die. She’d get him to a hospital. She flattened her hand over the wound.

  Wilkerson kept fiddling with the pistol. The bastard was trying to reload. She couldn’t let that happen. He’d have to kill her, too. Gritting her teeth, she strained to hold Jude upright, but he was too heavy. She felt as if they were straddling an abyss, and she was wrenching him away from the dark pit while gravity tugged him over the edge.

  A clatter echoed in the passage, and Haji sprinted into the courtyard. He aimed his gun at Wilkerson. “Drop your weapon,” he shouted.

  “I don’t take orders from the likes of you.” Wilkerson fired twice. Each bullet seemed to move in slow motion, floating through the grainy light, and then Haji fell to one knee. Dark, damp circles widened on his galabiyyah. He fell sideways. Caro looked down at Jude. Those eyebrows she loved so much were knitted together. His face was pale, beaded with perspiration.

  “We’ve got to get help,” she whispered. “Can you stand?”

  “Don’t worry about me. Run!” Jude nudged her toward the corridor. “Go.”

  “Your gallantry is admirable but ill-timed.” Wilkerson turned the gun on Caro.

  “No.” Jude struggled to sit up and spread his arms in front of her.

  Wilkerson fired into Jude’s knee. There was a crunch of bone and Jude went rigid, every muscle tensed with obvious pain.

  “Get away from him,” Wilkerson said.

  “Never.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Caroline.”

  Raphael ran out of the corridor and tackled Wilkerson. The pistol clattered across the courtyard as the men fell over backward and rolled over the stones.

  Jude gasped, his nostrils flaring. Caro pressed both hands against his chest. With each heartbeat, blood shot through her fingers. Dark red, not arterial. His face was alabaster, with a faint blue tinge around his mouth.

  “I’m cold.” He shivered. “So cold.”

  She lifted one hand from his chest, yanked off her pashmina, and draped it around him. The tang of blood and gunpowder h
ung in the air, making her stomach fold back on those sharp rocks. Jude cut his eyes toward Raphael and Wilkerson as they thrashed on the ground. Wilkerson’s hand strained for Haji’s gun.

  “Haji, look out,” Jude yelled, then coughed up another mouthful of pink froth.

  The Egyptian stirred. He rose and shook his head. He scrambled to his gun, then grabbed Wilkerson’s hair and pulled hard, bowing the man’s neck.

  “What did you do with Caro’s pages to Historia Immortalis?” Raphael asked.

  Wilkerson laughed. “She doesn’t own any bloody pages.”

  Raphael pressed his hands against Wilkerson’s skull. The wind scraped through the courtyard, and then everything went still. Raphael’s brow knitted in concentration, and Wilkerson began to scream.

  “Get out of my mind, you fucking vampire,” he yelled.

  Raphael’s hands sprang away from Wilkerson as if he’d touched burning chemicals and he turned to Haji. “The pages are hidden in a hotel room. Saint Catherine’s Plaza.”

  Caro’s hands were slick and red. She could feel Jude’s blood pumping. She lowered him to the ground and put his head in her lap. She barely noticed when Father Nickolas hunkered beside her.

  “He has a sucking chest wound,” the monk called to Haji. “Where is Kareem? We need the helicopter.”

  “Don’t bother. He’s finished.” Wilkerson laughed. “Unless you plan to bite him.”

  “Do not speak or I shall cut out your tongue.” Raphael kicked Wilkerson’s jaw. The bone cracked, and a tooth skittered across the courtyard. A crimson jet sprayed down Wilkerson’s chin.

  Raphael pulled off a long strip of duct tape and plastered it over Wilkerson’s mouth.

  “Drown in your own blood,” Raphael said.

  CHAPTER 65

  Jude’s blood pattered to the stones as the monks carried him into the corridor. First light was breaking over the mountains, and the monks’ hands instantly reddened, the flesh covered through with blisters.

  “Where is Kareem?” Raphael yelled.

  “He’s flying from Cairo.” Haji gave his gun to a tall monk and pointed to Wilkerson. “If he tries to run, shoot him in the balls.”

  Caro followed the monks. Their sandals chafed over the ground as they turned down a narrow vestibule that twisted and turned, then stopped in a T-shaped passage. Torches blazed from the stone wall, casting shadows on a row of doors, all wooden and heavily carved, except for one—it had been painted blue.

  A monk rushed ahead and flung open the door, and the others ran into the room and set Jude on an iron bed. Candles were set into the wall, blazing from shallow niches. She squeezed past the robed men and sank down beside Jude. He lifted one finger and grazed her cheek. “Tell me something, lass.”

  She couldn’t speak. Her hand slid under his arm. Cold. A thready pulse jumped in his wrist.

  Raphael stood on the opposite side of the bed, his pale hair loose, streaming over his galabiyyah. He started to lift Jude.

  Father Nickolas pushed in beside her, gripping scissors. He cut open Jude’s sweater and pulled back the wool. Caro stifled a gasp. Jude’s chest was red and slick. Blood streamed through multiple holes, ran off the side of the cot, and tapped against the floor.

  Jude grabbed Raphael’s hand. “Take care of her. And my child.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen,” Raphael said.

  Yes, it will. Caro’s neck prickled.

  Jude’s fingertips grazed her chin. “Just let me look at you. I didn’t get to say all that I meant to. But . . . I loved you the moment I saw you.”

  His chest sawed, as if he couldn’t get air. The linen beneath him was crimson. No one could lose this much blood and survive. She opened her eyes wide, trying to keep the tears from spilling down, then reached for his hand. This was her fault, all of it. The moment their lives had intersected, he’d been doomed, like everyone else. Her parents, Uncle Nigel, Phoebe.

  “He needs to be in a hospital,” she whispered to Father Nickolas.

  “There’s a clinic in Saint Catherine’s City,” he whispered back.

  “What about Dahab?” Raphael said.

  Father Nickolas leaned over the bed. “We need to fly him to Sharm El Sheikh.”

  Caro made a fist. They were talking as if Jude couldn’t hear. She took slow breaths, trying to calm herself. If he sensed her terror, his heart would beat faster, spilling more blood.

  His hand grazed her cheek. “Vous êtes mon air,” he said under his breath. You are my air.

  “Don’t you dare leave me,” she said. “I won’t let you.”

  “Lass?” Jude’s hand fell to her sleeve.

  “I’m here.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. Then his brow furrowed. “Don’t go outside.”

  “I won’t.” She looked up at Raphael.

  Delirious, mia cara. Raphael shook his head.

  “Momchilgrad isn’t . . . safe.” Jude’s hand dropped to the bed.

  “No!” Caro’s stomach heaved, the rocks churning. She folded her shaking hands around Jude’s. This wasn’t happening. If only they’d stayed in Momchilgrad—anywhere but this room with the blue door. He was cold. So cold. If only Wilkerson had shot her. Jude had protected her and now he was dying. Every second of every day she would ache for him.

  Jude plucked the sheets. Raphael reached across the bed and grabbed Caro’s hands. “We can save him, mia cara. But I cannot do it without your consent.”

  “Make him into a vampire?” She shook her head. “You know how he feels.”

  “No time to debate. Decide.”

  “I can’t allow it.” She pressed her face against Jude’s cheek. A tear ran sideways into her mouth. My love. My only love. I can’t let you go.

  “No time to think!” Raphael shook her arm. “We will lose him.”

  She lifted her face. “Do it,” she whispered. Fear had made her voice weak and raspy.

  Raphael picked up the scissors and drew the pointed tip along his wrist. He held his hand above Jude’s mouth. The blood made faint tapping sounds as it hit Jude’s teeth. “Hold his lips, mia cara.”

  She slipped her hand under Jude’s chin, feeling the stubble graze her palm. His eyelids fluttered.

  “Oh, thank God. He’s coming around.” She glanced up at the monks. “Isn’t he?”

  Raphael wrapped gauze around his wrist and didn’t answer. The monks found an intravenous kit in the first-aid drawer and set up a makeshift transfusion. Father Nickolas inserted a needle into Father Konstantine’s arm and attached plastic tubing to the catheter. A monk with a shaved head started an IV in Jude’s arm, and the two lines were joined. A thin line of vampire blood raced down the tube into Jude’s veins. His eyes opened. The pupils were large, as if dark water were slowly filling them.

  “He is not responding,” Father Nickolas whispered to Raphael.

  “What do you mean?” Caro said, her voice rising.

  “She shouldn’t see,” Father Nickolas said.

  “Why not?” she cried.

  Because the monks will do more than infuse blood into Jude’s veins. They must bite him. Please don’t cry, mia cara. A vampire’s saliva is filled with a substance that facilitates the change.

  Stem cells. She pressed her face into the blood-soaked linen. She kept seeing Jude charge fearlessly into that courtyard without a weapon. An icy hand touched her arm, and she looked up.

  “Come, mia cara.”

  “No.” She wrenched free and grabbed Jude’s hand.

  Above her, the monks’ voices sparked like cinders caught in an updraft.

  “When will Kareem be here?” one asked.

  “It’s too late for the helicopter,” another said.

  “No, it isn’t,” she cried. “You can’t give up, not yet.”

  “Mia cara, they are doing everything they can,” Raphael said in her ear. “He’s hemorrhaging.”

  “Give him another transfusion.”

  Raphael cast an edgy glance at the narrow wind
ow, where a monk struggled to close the wooden shutters. “We should go, mia cara. The sun has risen.”

  “Then leave.” Caro wiped her face. Even she could see that it was too late. A red stream spilled over the edge of the mattress to the floor, a dark torrent carrying him away.

  “I will not leave without you,” Raphael said. Before she could protest, he lifted her into his arms.

  “Set me down.” She slammed her fist against the vampire’s chest. Her knuckles stung, as if she’d hit limestone.

  “You cannot see this.” His grip tightened.

  “You’re hurting me, dammit. Let go. Jude’s by himself. He needs me.”

  “He isn’t alone. The monks will anoint him and pray.”

  A bald monk leaned over the desk, burning something that looked like wheat. Another monk smeared oil on Jude’s forehead. Others knelt in blood and traced crosses in the air, speaking in a dead language. Each man bore an infinity tattoo, identical to the one she’d seen on Raphael’s arm.

  He turned to her. “He would not want you to stay, mia cara.”

  Father Konstantine opened the blue door and beckoned Raphael to follow him into the wide, torch-lit hall. Raphael stepped over the blood spatters and carried her away from Jude, into the winding maze. As she pushed against his chest, a fury burned in her throat, a pyroclas-tic flow that threatened to dissolve everything in its path. Her head jolted painfully against Raphael’s chest when he followed Father Konstantine into a brightly lit, square room.

  Raphael set her down but held on to her shoulder. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw red altar candles burning on a table. Beyond the candles, monks were seated around a long pine table. At the far end, Haji bent over a cup of blood. A bulky bandage covered his shoulder.

  “The tourist police arrested Wilkerson,” Haji said.

  “Arrested him?” Caro cried. “Why didn’t you shoot him?”

  Haji’s eyes widened as he caught the edge in her voice, then looked away. “The police are tracking his vampire—he will be in custody before dawn.”

  “No one will chase you now.” Raphael led her to a chair and draped a blanket around her shoulders. “And your father’s artifacts will be returned.”