"Honored One, do we know the whereabouts of Nyles Abernathy, Edward Desmarais' sire?" Gavin asked, ignoring the greeting.
"Charles!" Wlodek's shout for his assistant could have been heard by a human, I think, and Gavin was holding the phone away from his ear and grimacing in pain.
We both listened while Wlodek instructed Charles to get Nyles on the phone. We waited. Nyles had an assistant too, because Wlodek came back to us in a few minutes with the information that Master Abernathy was traveling.
"He's striking back at us for us killing Edward, isn't he?" Wlodek said after passing off the information.
"It looks that way," Gavin replied.
"Do you want Radomir to come?"
"Go ahead and send him but I'm still going to try and take Abernathy down in the meantime," Gavin raked fingers through his hair.
"He probably knows we know, now," I said quietly. "I'm sure his assistant was instructed to let him know if we tried to contact him."
"Did you hear that, Honored One?"
"Yes."
"Fuck," Gavin said.
"Heard that too," Wlodek observed dryly. "We have no record of his asking to use a safe house, so he could be almost anywhere," Wlodek went on. Gavin and I had heard Charles say the same thing, off in the distance.
"Dawn is nearly here, Gavin," Wlodek gave him the reminder.
"Thank you for the information, Honored One," Gavin said, ending the call.
"He's been killing with two or three nights in between," I said, but realized that Gavin already knew that. He didn't reprimand me. "I'll go read, now," I said quietly and went to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. Not being able to help myself, I stuck my head out again after a couple of minutes. "Since he knows now, he may step up his attacks." I shut the door a second time and went to find my book.
The page from the phone book containing names of bars beginning with the letter F was in my hand as Gavin drove through Tampa the following evening. I suppose the good thing about hunting a vampire is that he couldn't move in daylight, just as Gavin and I couldn't. He'd be asleep someplace while the sun was in the sky. We were headed toward Farscape, a nightclub near Tarpon Springs. I didn't think Nyles would pick the first name out of the book but Gavin wasn't satisfied with not checking all of them. I smelled plenty of perfume, aftershave, suntan oil and perspiration when we got there, but no vampire. We left.
The next name on the list was Felicity's, inside a hotel. Gavin set the GPS and started driving again. It was humorous to me that vampires were so gadget oriented; Gavin had a nice MacBook Pro. Honestly, I would have taken him for a PC guy. The hotel bar was nice. In Farscape, my feet had stuck to the floor a little. No vampire at the hotel bar either, Gavin knew it as soon as I did. We left. There were only two F bars left—The Fisherman's Bend and Foxy's. The Fisherman's Bend was south of Sun City and not all that big, either. I would have called it a hole in the wall but Gavin had a set look on his face so I didn't disturb him. He was in Assassin mode, I figured, and I sure didn't want to mess with that.
The scent was nearly overpowering when we walked inside the bar and it scared me. There were only two vampires that I knew of that were older than that scent and they were Wlodek and Merrill. If this was Nyles, he was older than Gavin. Not fully sure whether Gavin would get anything from me or not, I sent him mindspeech anyway. Gavin, he's older than you, I sent. Gavin never moved a muscle to let me know he'd heard.
Instead, Gavin leaned down and brushed his lips against my neck, making me shiver. "Go to the restroom and mist," he murmured against my skin. I headed toward the ladies' room to do just that. There was only one stall and I had to wait precious minutes for it. Hoping all hell wouldn't break loose while I waited, I tapped my foot until the girl finally came out.
"Leave the bar now," I hissed, placing compulsion. She nodded and hit the door at a trot. I locked myself inside the stall and concentrated on turning to mist. Merrill had timed me at a bit over four minutes and thirty seconds. I had to calm myself down to turn as fast as I could. I was almost changed completely when I heard the screams outside the restroom, along with the sounds of crashing furniture and running feet.
Misting under the door to get back to the bar, I found total chaos inside the place. The humans were shouting and screaming, all of them trying to get out the door at once. What drew my attention was Gavin. He stood off in a corner, glaring at something that wasn't that far away from me. Initially, it had been blocked by fleeing bar patrons. Now I could see it clearly and if my blood hadn't been cold already, it would have become so. He wasn't tall, perhaps five-nine or so, with thick blond hair and a stocky body. If he'd had black frame glasses and a pocket protector, he might have looked like any geek from Silicon Valley. He was dressed in an expensive suit instead, didn't need glasses and was pointing a flamethrower at Gavin.
Anybody holding a flamethrower would be somebody to get the hell away from, but a vampire holding a flamethrower? That had to be a hundred times worse. A man ran in front of the vampire and he fired a jet of flame, setting the poor soul on fire. Instead of dropping to the floor and trying to beat out the flames by rolling, the man ran through the door, his body blazing. His fiery exit caused even more havoc; I heard screams from the crowd outside and I didn't know if there was any saving him after that. All the patrons were now outside the bar. Only Gavin, Nyles Abernathy and I remained inside.
Nyles casually set a wooden table on fire that had been knocked over between him and Gavin. Gavin wouldn't have any way of knowing I was behind Nyles and in my present state that did me no good at all. All Nyles had to do was shoot the flamethrower at Gavin and he would be burned to a crisp. I didn't think vampires and fire mixed all that well.
Wlodek said that he was sending Radomir. I had no idea when Radomir was coming, where he was at the moment or how far I could send mindspeech. I sent it out anyway, because the way things were going, Gavin and I might not make it out of this alive. Radomir, we're at The Fisherman's Bend Bar in Tampa. Nyles has a Flamethrower. That was the best I could do before I concentrated on turning back to myself behind Nyles as he faced off with Gavin.
Nyles was laughing and shouting at Gavin as I turned, and for fun shot the flamethrower toward Gavin's left to keep him from inching toward the door. I also heard sirens in the distance and knew we didn't have much time. I concentrated harder while Nyles aimed another blast at Gavin. Gavin moved at the last millisecond, barely avoiding being fried. The table continued to burn, along with the wall to Gavin's left. The whole building was going to go up quickly once those flames found their way to the ceiling.
"You should have held your child in check," Gavin said, ducking another shot of flame.
"You think so? Who do you think taught him to play?" Nyles sounded crazed and I figured a crazed vampire couldn't be a good thing. I also didn't think Nyles planned on coming out of this alive. He intended to take Gavin down with him when he went, too. "I wondered how many people would die before you figured out my simple puzzle," Nyles laughed. I was nearly solid again. Only a few more seconds. Those seconds were too long.
"Stand still while I kill you," Nyles' compulsion rang out like a bell and Gavin went completely still. Nyles was firing his flamethrower directly at Gavin when I got back to normal and I didn't even have to force my claws out this time, I was so furious. I slashed out at Nyles' neck, causing him to shoot the flamethrower upward and catching the ceiling on fire.
Chapter 18
Nyles stood there, shooting fire into the ceiling for seconds and the entire bar was in flames before he began to flake away. His head never dropped from his body, though, until his knees buckled and he fell to the floor. The flamethrower stopped then but it was already too late; fire was roaring through the building.
Gavin's flesh was still burning when I threw myself on top of him, barely managing to suffocate the flames before the building began to cave in. Water was pouring in, too—the firefighters had arrived. I have no idea what those people thought w
hen I kicked right through the wall of the building, hauling Gavin along with me. The scent of burning was in my nostrils and I couldn’t smell anything other than that. Someone came forward to help me and I was trying to fend him off, knowing if Gavin were taken to a hospital somewhere, it would be disastrous.
"Lissa! Lissa, it's me!" Radomir was trying to get through to me somehow, but it took precious time to do it. When I realized who it was and allowed him take Gavin, Radomir rushed us through the gathered crowd who parted to let us pass. Gavin was laid in the back seat of a rented SUV, Radomir tossed me into the passenger seat and in a blink, we were on our way out of there. I started crying. Gavin was dead and everything was awful.
"There's blood in the cooler in the back," Radomir said, doing his best to drive through the city as quickly as possible. "See if you can get him to swallow any." I was sniffling as I climbed through the speeding SUV, carefully wriggling over the back seat so I wouldn't injure Gavin's blackened flesh. Tossing six bags of blood into the floor in front of the back seat, I climbed back over and ripped the top off one of the bags. Gavin couldn't even moan as I did my best to pour blood down his throat. Most of it was coming right back out again, even as I was praying that some of it would make its way inside.
"Come on, Gavin," I wept. "Drink this or I swear I'll never speak to you again." The second bag was now in my hand and I was trying desperately to get it down Gavin's throat. His throat convulsed and he swallowed. And then swallowed again. I almost sobbed and poured the rest of that bag into him before tossing the empty aside and reaching for the third. I had the better part of five bags into Gavin when Radomir drove in the garage at the safe house. He carried Gavin inside and down the steps to the basement.
We convinced Gavin to drink another two bags of blood and Radomir was beginning to look hopeful. Gavin was lying on the sofa in the tiny living room while I was picking charred clothing away from his flesh. "We'll put him in a tub of water shortly before dawn," Radomir told me. "I think we've gotten enough blood down him now."
Radomir handed a unit of blood to me later while I sat at the kitchen table, staring morosely at Gavin's body lying on the sofa just feet away. "Drink some, it'll help," Radomir urged gently. "If you hadn't sent mindspeech, I would never have known where you were," he added. "And it came in, clear as a bell. The plane had just landed at the airport and I was loading my bags into the SUV."
"Thank you for being there." I still felt like crying as I sipped my blood. "I was terrified somebody would try to take him to a hospital and that would have been a calamity."
"Yes, it would have been that for certain," Radomir sighed. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. I heard Wlodek's voice when he answered.
"Child," Wlodek said, "what has happened?" Radomir truly was Wlodek's son, by blood. Not his biological father, but by blood, anyway. I realized I could connect the two by scent.
"Nyles had a flamethrower and burned down a bar along with injuring Gavin. We do not know if he will survive the rejuvenating sleep," Radomir explained.
"Is Nyles still running loose, then?" Wlodek sounded upset.
"No, father. Lissa killed him."
"Put Lissa on the phone." It was an order. Radomir handed the phone to me.
"Honored One?" I was tired and it came through in my voice.
"Lissa, tell me exactly what happened." I told him. About turning to mist and Nyles playing with all of us, terrifying the bar crowd and sending them rushing through the door. About his placing a compulsion on Gavin so he'd stand still to be burned. And then about my turning back to myself behind Nyles to decapitate him.
"Do you think Gavin will live?" he asked.
"I hope so," I sighed. "We got as much blood as we could into him. I guess we have to wait now. His skin is black and just flakes off if we touch him."
"I made the right decision, sending you," Wlodek said.
"Yes, I suppose you did," I agreed. "I just wish it had turned out better."
"I will get some of the local vampires to do damage control," he told me. "There are quite a few in the area. Let me speak to Radomir again."
I handed the phone back to Radomir and went to kneel beside Gavin. Even his hair had been burned. I remembered Charles telling me it would only grow about half an inch a year. If Gavin lived, he'd have short hair for a while. "Gavin," I said softly, "I don't know you well enough to say what you need to hear to make you want to live. I have no idea what that might be. But I can't help thinking that you wouldn't want to leave this way. You strike me as the guy who'd want to decide for himself how that happened, instead of allowing some crazed idiot with a flamethrower to make that decision for you. Radomir says we'll put you in a tub of water after a while, so I'm going to go clean the bathtub a little. I don't want you getting soap scum on your tooshie when we put you in." I touched his forehead lightly and my fingers were blackened with ash when I pulled them away.
The bathtub was as clean as I could make it when we put him in later. "I made the water slightly warm, I hope it's the right temperature," I told Gavin as Radomir lowered him into the tub. The water was black in seconds as the top layer of his skin floated away. We replaced the water three times and it was still draining out gray when we pulled Gavin out. I'd laid towels across his bed as Radomir carried Gavin inside the bedroom and laid him down on top of them.
"Honey, I don't know if you can stand this or not, but I'm taking a chance anyway," I said and covered Gavin lightly with a sheet.
"I'll sleep in here, over in the floor," I told Radomir. "You can take my bed." Radomir didn't argue when I went to the other side of the floor and sat down. I keeled right over the minute dawn came.
* * *
The moan woke me when night fell, making me jerk upright. I'd been in a curled up position, having fallen over in the floor the minute the sun had come up, almost. Scuffling over to the bed on my knees, I peeked over the edge to see what was happening. Gavin was moving just a little. His skin looked bright pink, as skin sometimes does after a scab drops off. "I'll get some blood for you," I told him and rushed off to the kitchen.
Having no idea how much he might need or be able to drink, I grabbed three bags and ran back to the bedroom. Gavin was moving around, trying to sit up. "Here," I said, pulling him up as best I could while trying not to hurt him. He was naked, didn't seem to care and nearly bald on top of that—there were still a few small patches of hair on the back of his head. His dark eyes examined me briefly before tearing into the first bag of blood and drinking it quickly. I had the top off the second one and passed that to him so he could start on it. He got halfway into the third one before he sat back, closed his eyes and sighed.
"Did you get the asshole?" he asked.
"Yes. Asshole gone now. Gone, gone."
"Why are you talking like that?" he demanded, opening his eyes and frowning at me.
"Ooh. Tarzan thump mighty chest," I said. His mouth quirked into a smile.
I cleaned the bathtub out again before any of us took a shower. We left the keys to our rental car under the mat; the local vamps were going to return it for us. Radomir and I loaded everything into Radomir's rented SUV. Radomir told Gavin to rest while he and I did all the work. That didn't sit well with him and he grumbled, but did as he was told anyway. He kept his eyes closed most of the flight back, and I think he slept off and on. Will and Russell met us at the airport and helped with the bags. Radomir bundled Gavin into the Limo Russell brought and we all drove to Wlodek's manor. I suppose we were debriefed, whatever the hell that means. We just talked about what happened, Gavin and I, while Charles typed it all into his computer for the records. Gavin was exhausted but wasn't willing to let Wlodek know it, suffering in silence mostly, his face an expressionless mask. He only spoke when Wlodek asked a question.
"Nyles' assets will be liquidated and handed over to the Council," Wlodek said after we finished talking. Merrill came in a little later to pick me up. Franklin was with him and they both hugged me. I was rea
lly glad to see both of them to be honest, and when we got home it felt like home. Franklin went off to bed when we got back but I asked Merrill if I could talk to him for a few minutes.
"Of course," he smiled, leading me toward his study.
"Merrill," I said, "I think there's something you should know. At first I thought all vampires could do this but now I'm not so sure."
"What is it, child?" He was sitting behind his desk while he watched me, his fingers steepled under his chin.
"Well," I began, "when I finally learned that Gavin's scent was the scent of a vampire, I was able to compare that to the scents of other vampires I met afterward. Will's isn't as heavy and exotic as Gavin's. Russell's is a bit spicier than Will's. When they took me into the Council chamber that night, I knew immediately, just from the scent, that Wlodek was the oldest vampire, there. Then the rest of the Council came, according to age, that is, except for Charles, of course, his was light. After the Council, Gavin's came next. I don't know exactly how old any of them truly are but I could line them up in descending order, according to their ages." I looked at Merrill, whose face was now unreadable.
"You can tell this? This is extraordinary," he dropped his hands and lifted his letter opener.
"Yes. I hope this doesn't result in my death," I said. "I know that you would be right behind Wlodek in the age thing. When Gavin and I walked into the bar two nights ago, I could smell Nyles and knew he was older than Gavin. That meant he might be able to place compulsion on Gavin. I tried to send mindspeech to Gavin to tell him, but I don't think he heard me."
One of Merrill's eyebrows was now quirked up as high as it would go. "Lissa, that talent might come in handy quite often," he said, smiling a little. "Vampires don't generally like telling their age and it's rude to ask. However, since you don't know the actual number, we'll leave it at that for now, shall we? I will have to inform Wlodek of this, but if he does as I think he'll do, he'll keep this to himself and only ask you to employ it when necessary. The fewer that know about this the better." I nodded in total agreement with that assessment.
Blood Wager (Blood Destiny #1) Page 26