by Linda Howard
“Is Kristi the only one here?”
“No, there are a dozen more on site. Male and female, all young, all pretty, and entirely ours. This is the way it was before, with humans serving us the way they should.”
On the couch, Kristi whispered dreamily, “I can hear the ocean. It’s so relaxing.” She stared at one of the walls as if she were looking out a window at the pounding surf.
“What did Hector think of this new arrangement?” Luca asked. In the past, donors had been housed here for a few hours, perhaps a day, then their memories were wiped and they were returned to their rightful places in the world.
Maybe she heard the disapproval in his tone, because she stiffened and her dark eyes narrowed, but she contented herself with saying, “He saw the logic of the arrangement.”
Maybe. If Marie could glamour that many people for that long without irrevocably damaging their minds, that would certainly make feeding the Council less of a logistical problem. He shrugged. “I can see the benefit, I guess, but I’m still not interested.”
Marie shrugged, too, then closed and locked the door. If Kristi was so willing and the glamour so perfected, Luca wondered, why bother with the lock? Marie turned, headed for the stairway with a sway in her hips. “Find whoever killed Hector,” she said without looking back. “I know you’ll be looking regardless of what the Council says or how long it takes the fools to reach a consensus. The murder of a councilman can’t be tolerated, or we’re all at risk.”
Was her concern genuine, or was she simply throwing up a smoke screen? After all, her insistence that humans should be subservient was in line with the rebels’ way of thinking, but not unusual at all in the vampire world. Probably all of the Council members felt the same way, even though they bowed to necessity when it came to keeping their own existence secret.
Luca followed her back to the entryway, then let himself out. The hot summer sunlight seemed to eat at his skin, but he didn’t show any reaction as he strode away. When he was out of sight of the building, he checked to see if he’d been followed—he hadn’t—then he began backtracking. He knew who had killed Hector, but not the Council member behind the murder. How deeply did the betrayal go? How organized were these rebels, and how close were they to bringing disaster down on them all? Yes, he was hungry, and the hunt called to him, but he had control over even his most basic needs, and feeding would wait … for now.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Potomac neighborhood
Her captors left her alone more frequently these days than they had in the beginning. Nevada Sheldon had been twenty years old when she’d been taken, a college student oblivious to the dark world beyond—and yet so close to—her own. She’d certainly had no idea that she was a witch. At first she hadn’t believed them. True, she’d had good instincts all her life, and on occasion small wishes would come true, but she’d never considered those little oddities to be a sign of power. Everyone had things like that happen, right?
The power she possessed now would have been frightening and unmanageable for the girl she’d been then, but now she had the strength to move forward and make the best of what she’d discovered, what she’d become.
Nevada didn’t know if the vampires who had taken her and her family almost three years ago thought she was totally cowed, or if they were so arrogant they didn’t think she could possibly harm them or interfere with their plans. She voted for arrogance, because no one topped the vampires in that. Three years ago she hadn’t known they even existed, but since then her survival had depended on learning as much about them as she could, and fast.
And yet, they needed her; they needed her to break the spell cast by an ancestor she hadn’t known about until they’d told her about her witch blood, which was something else she hadn’t known about, much less that she was evidently descended from a long line of über-witches. Because they needed her, they’d assured her that she wouldn’t be harmed, but at the same time, they had no qualms about threatening her parents and her younger brother and sister to make her do what they wanted.
She’d been terrified at first. She hadn’t known what they were talking about, only that she and her entire family had been kidnapped by these monsters, then separated. She was kept in luxury in a large bedroom in a mansion, while her family was kept, the vampires said, in a dungeon somewhere. After being held in total seclusion, except for the monsters, after being scared half out of her mind, finally it had occurred to her that she had a weapon against them: herself. They used her family to force her to do what they wanted, but, by God, they had better keep them alive and at least reasonably well-treated or she wouldn’t do a damn thing the monsters wanted.
Standoff. After trying unsuccessfully to bully her, they had finally relented and shown her cell phone pictures of her family, and every now and then they would place a call and she’d be allowed to talk, very briefly, to one of her family just to reassure her that they were still alive.
So long as her family was alive, she would try to do what the vampires wanted. They set up a work area in the middle of the huge bedroom, bringing in tables and a comfortable chair, and then they had brought her tons of really old books, books so old she was afraid to turn the pages because she kept expecting them to fall apart under her fingers, but they never did. There were so many books that they were stacked everywhere, piles of them, some of them so huge and heavy she couldn’t lift them and had to either call one of the vampires for help or shove and tug at the books herself to get them out of the way. She did a lot of shoving and tugging, because as a general rule she’d rather eat ground glass than ask a vampire for help.
For the first several weeks, she’d been at a complete loss. A witch? Her? If she’d been a witch, wouldn’t she have stopped them from kidnapping her family? But they’d told her she “must learn”—yeah, that was real specific—and the threats against her family had spurred her to at least pretend she was doing something, so she’d begun leafing through those old books. She didn’t like touching them, had to force herself to look at the pages. They gave her a creepy feeling. The paper smelled … weird, as if wasn’t really paper at all, but something else she couldn’t identify. And some of the pages were stained with what she thought was blood, which really gave her the creeps. If these books were about witchcraft, it was the bad kind of witchcraft, not the kind that was all about being one with nature and treating people with respect, stuff like that.
Some of them were in some kind of weird language she couldn’t read. How the hell was she supposed to “learn” if she couldn’t read the language? On the other hand, if the vamps had been able to read the books, they wouldn’t have needed her; likewise if they suspected she really had no clue how to learn what they insisted she learn, so she kept her mouth shut and dug into the books.
The books that were in that weird language she shoved off to the side—why waste time with them?—and began concentrating on those that were sort of, at least, written in English. Even though she understood all the words, they were strung together in ways that didn’t make sense. Light of the dark, dark of the day—yeah, right. It was gibberish. But the monsters took their gibberish seriously, so Nevada tried her best to do what they wanted.
Then, slowly, the words in the books began to resonate with something deep inside her, began to take on meanings that went beyond the words themselves. She couldn’t quite put her finger on exactly what it was, maybe something like a current she could ride, a door she could step through, or both. But there was something—and it called to her. So what at first she had been doing out of desperation she began doing willingly, and then even eagerly, though she hid that from her captors.
Six months into her captivity, she successfully cast her first simple spell. It wasn’t anything much, she’d tried to reheat some food that had gotten cold because she was distracted by her reading—the food was pretty terrible because vampires weren’t interested in eating at all, so being cold had pretty much made the stuff inedible—but the
spell worked. She’d been so excited she had jumped up and down and done a happy dance, because all this reading and studying was evidently accomplishing something after all.
Then she had wondered what she was so happy about, because she was smart enough to figure out that, if she managed to reverse this spell the vamps were so concerned about, then she’d have no more value to them and they’d kill her and her family as casually as if they were swatting flies. It stood to reason that if she could reverse the spell, she would also be able to reinstate it whenever she chose, or lay some other nasty spell on them, so of course they intended to kill her.
Her only chance, and the only chance her family had, was to hide how fast her skills were developing until she was strong enough, skilled enough, to do … something. Another kind of protection spell, maybe. A liberation spell. Hell, she didn’t know. Just something.
She’d played along as best she could, reassuring them that she was learning, demonstrating small spells for them when they pressed her for proof of her progress. The weeks and months had turned to years, and she would have gone crazy a long time ago if the work itself hadn’t been so engrossing—and if it hadn’t been for Sorin.
She didn’t know what his last name was. Maybe vampires didn’t have last names. No, they’d once been humans, so surely they did, but none of those she had met used a surname. She guessed that when you lived for hundreds of years last names stopped mattering, because it wasn’t as if they were going to have kids and pass the name along. Nevada didn’t understand why she liked him. No, it wasn’t even something as simple as “liking.” It was something more. Nothing sexual, nothing romantic, but some sort of tie she couldn’t understand. She felt safe with him. Okay, not exactly safe, but safer.
Sorin was … well, she didn’t know what he was. Not the leader, because that was the bitch who thought she was some kind of queen, but nevertheless all the others kind of deferred to him. It wasn’t just that he was big and muscled and gorgeous, with blond hair and glowing blue eyes, or that he was like some kind of general in this battle or war they were fighting. (They weren’t exactly forthcoming with her—she only got bits and pieces when they forgot she could overhear them. She tried to put it all together into a story, but huge gaps were missing.) The other vamps respected him. He was in some position of power, because they listened to him. Well, the bloodsucking bitch queen who ran this sick show didn’t, but from what Nevada could tell she didn’t listen to or respect anyone except herself.
And Sorin had protected her, hadn’t allowed any of the others to feed from her. His reason had been completely logical: the work and study load they required of her was exhausting, even with her at her full strength; if they weakened her by feeding from her, she wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace. They were on some kind of schedule, Nevada thought, one that she was now pushing to the limit. They wanted results, they wanted that spell broken, and they wanted it soon.
If Nevada could have arranged it, she wouldn’t have had contact with any of them other than Sorin, not that he was an angel himself. Far from it, in fact. He came to her room every day—or rather, every night—to assess her progress, and he wasn’t above using threats against her family to push her even harder. Sometimes, though, he tried to charm her with a smile—and, gawd, what a smile!—or a kind word, a reminder that he wasn’t like the others, that he liked her and wanted what was best.
But Sorin was different from the others, even though she couldn’t explain why. He was frightening, but he didn’t frighten her, even when he was threatening her. He was a vampire like the others, but he didn’t give her the heebie-jeebies. She actually looked forward to seeing him. Yeah, it was sick, but she still felt that way. At least he didn’t treat her as if she meant nothing, the way the other vamps did.
She wasn’t delusional, though; she never let herself think that Sorin would ever help her, ever put her above the vampires’ interests. He was what he was, and if she sometimes saw flashes of the man he’d been long ago, the human he’d been, that was something she couldn’t let tempt her into doing something stupid.
The fact was, she was getting close to being able to break the spell. Her power and knowledge had been steadily growing, but a huge shift had occurred about a year ago. Some of those large books written in that weird unknown language had been in her way and she’d been dragging them to the side when one of them had fallen open. She’d glanced at the page—and abruptly her entire body felt electrified, her hair standing on end from the shock. She could read the book. The language hadn’t suddenly been transformed into English, it was still the same odd blend of swirls and angles that didn’t look like any alphabet she’d ever seen before, but she could read it.
Hastily she dragged some of the other books to her, flipped them open. Some of them she could read, some of them were about halfway legible, and one of the really old books was still gibberish to her.
And suddenly she’d understood. The books in English were like primers, teaching her basic stuff, getting her ready for the next step. The books she could read now were … high school. The ones she halfway understood were the college courses, and the lone indecipherable one was for her master’s degree—or doctorate, depending on how tough it was. When she could read it, then she’d know she was ready for the big leagues.
A year down the road, she still couldn’t read that one last book, but a word here and there was making sense. Close … she was so close. The book was beginning to open to her. The vamps had no idea how far she had come, the powers she had practiced and pushed and expanded. They might keep her body imprisoned in this room, but thanks to the weapons they themselves had brought her—the books—she had just recently learned how to set herself free.
She could “see” beyond this room she was never allowed to leave. She had to be careful when she did it, though; she wasn’t certain what went on with her body while she was mentally traveling, whether she looked as if she were asleep, if she was merely sitting with her eyes open, or if she was jerking and drooling. She hoped it wasn’t the jerk and drool, but who knew?
The hideous monster who always delivered her food had just left. She had some time before Sorin could be expected for his nightly visit to check on her and push her for a progress report. He pretty much had to believe what she told him, because really they had no way of testing her, unless maybe they brought in another witch or vampire who was some sort of lie detector, but so far she’d successfully skated around the truth while at the same time showing enough growth in her powers to give them hope, to give them a reason for keeping her and her family alive.
She wanted to find her family. She wanted to see for herself that they were okay, that the vamps hadn’t done something backhanded like recording her family’s voices, then setting up those calls for her to hear them, when all the while they were long dead. Part of her whispered that Sorin wouldn’t do something like that, but that was the part that thought she recognized the remnants of humanity in him. The logical part of her brain said He’s a vampire, and she had learned how ruthless they were.
But thanks to Sorin the others left her alone, unless they were bringing meals to her, so she was grateful to him not only for sparing her from being a McDracula snack but also because she could pretty much count on solitude right now.
She hadn’t realized just how lucky she was to have his protection until, during one of her first experiments with remote viewing, she’d mentally stumbled upon a vampire soldier feeding from a human who was kept a prisoner for that very purpose. It hadn’t been pretty. They had fed from her so often that the woman was near death, and the savagery with which the vampire had torn into her … Nevada had jerked herself away from the scene, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t think the woman had survived.
Nevada went to stand at her workstation, a large, oblong table with books, crystals, stones, and cards scattered across the top. Her long red hair fell across her face and into her eyes; annoyed, she pulled the hair clip from the ba
ck of her head, gathered her hair, and resecured it. She really, really needed a haircut, but the vamps wouldn’t let her have scissors.
With that irritant out of the way, she rolled her shoulders, settled, and focused. Tugging one particular book toward her, she opened it to the page she wanted, spread her fingers, and lightly touched all ten fingertips across the words of the spell. She closed her eyes, and began gathering her newly discovered energy, pulling it inside as she whispered the words of the spell, feeling a shimmer begin to spread through her body, through every cell, permeating the fabric of her being. She took several deep breaths, then sent her mind outward. At the very last second she thought, “Sorin.”
She never knew exactly where she would end up, so she was trying to learn control. If she thought of a destination, maybe that’s where the spell would take her. She didn’t know where Sorin was, but maybe she didn’t need to; maybe the spell could take her to a person rather than just a place.
In her mind, she opened her eyes.
She stood in the corner of another room, a very functional, utilitarian room without any windows, furnished with a computer, maps, files … yes, she had the impression it was in this very building. Sorin was there. She gave a triumphant pump of her fist—or at least, her spirit did. Yes! The experiment had worked! She’d gone straight to him.
There were other vampires in the room with him, and in this realm she could see that they were like him, and yet … not. She could see more clearly in him the man he had once been, but in the others … no. She could see only the monsters they were, with no shred of humanity left. She had to be careful of Sorin, and not let herself forget that he was a monster, too, perhaps the worst monster of them all, because he could hide behind his handsome face, suppress the monster when it suited him.