by Linda Howard
She could see them, hear them, but they couldn’t see her. She wondered if she could walk among them, brush against their spirits, but as soon as the idea occurred she thrust it away. That would be stupid. Vampires were at essence creatures of magic, and they might very well sense the touch of another kind of magic.
One of the vampires in the room stuck a pin in a detailed map of D.C. “Chloe Fallon,” he said. “Her warrior is trying to contact her, but she’s still several weeks away from hearing the call. I don’t think there’s any hurry on her.”
“Don’t tell me about the conduits I don’t need to worry about,” Sorin growled. “Tell me about the ones I need to kill now.”
“She’s practically in our backyard,” another vampire said, sounding annoyed. “Why wait until the last minute?”
Sorin gave the third vampire a narrow-eyed look. “Jonas will let us know when it’s time. More and more warriors are trying to come in, and some conduits respond faster than others. There are only so many of us who can travel in the daytime, so we take care of the most urgent first.”
Conduit. What was a conduit? And what was this about warriors? Didn’t matter, Nevada thought as she listened to them talk. The vampires were systematically killing these humans they called conduits, and Sorin was leading them. The vampires were planning to seize power, but first they had to kill these conduits who somehow could contact these special warriors. It didn’t make sense to her, but she didn’t have to understand to know that innocent people had been killed and even more were slated to die. She herself was part of this grand plan; she had to break a spell that kept the vampires from breaching human sanctuary. Until now, however, she hadn’t realized there was another part to the scheme.
The vampire who had stuck the pin in the map picked up a photo from his desk and handed it to Sorin. “This is Chloe Fallon.” He rubbed a hand over his face; he looked exhausted, which was weird, because Nevada hadn’t realized vampires could get tired. But this vampire wasn’t tall and muscular like Sorin; in fact, he looked like a geek, with a scraggly build and a mild face.
Sorin looked down at the photograph. Nevada sent her spirit edging closer, so she could get a look, too, but she was careful not to get too close to Sorin. The woman in the photograph was a pretty blonde with a cheerful, infectious smile, but there was something fragile about her that Nevada couldn’t put her finger on, as if she was in danger of fading away. She wasn’t thin, wasn’t sickly looking, but—
She was going to die.
Nevada felt a chill run through her spirit body. This pretty young woman who was innocent of any wrongdoing was going to die because she was a conduit, because she was the means of bringing one of these badass warriors into being. The vampires must be scared shitless of the warriors, must realize they couldn’t win the war they were planning if enough of the warriors could make it to the fight.
These people, these conduits, were helpless, Nevada thought. They didn’t know vampires existed, much less that the vamps were stalking them like animals and butchering them.
But she could make a difference. She knew she could. Physically she was bound, but her mind was free. She could help defy the vampires, and they’d never know—
With a deep intake of air and a heavy thump of her heart, Nevada found herself solidly and completely back in her room. Her knees wobbled and she sat down hard, completely missing her chair and sprawling on her ass. She sat there trying to gather her spinning senses, marshal her thoughts.
She could do something. She had a real sense of who and where this Chloe Fallon was located. She was here in D.C., close enough that Nevada thought maybe she could reach her. If Chloe had been in Alaska, say, that was probably beyond Nevada’s skill right now. But every time she did this she got better, so if she managed to warn Chloe then probably the next time she could reach farther out, to other conduits.
Could she communicate beyond these walls? Once she would have said no, but that was before she tapped into the power that had lain dormant within her. If she could listen in and observe what was happening a couple of floors below, why should there be a limit? She didn’t know that she could reach this Chloe Fallon and warn her, but she had to try.
Quickly she scrambled to her feet and once more stood at the table, absently rubbing her aching butt as she leafed through the book before her. The spells weren’t in any order, weren’t broken down by section so she could just flip to, say, Warning from a Distance and find what she needed. Looking through the book took more time than she liked, because the wording was so obscure that sometimes she had to read a spell three or four times before she understood the purpose of it. Eventually, though, she found a spell that she thought might work. What did she have to lose? What did Chloe have to lose?
Her life, that’s what, if this didn’t work.
Nevada whispered the words on the page, words that would give her access to Chloe’s mind … if she was doing it correctly. She closed her eyes and pictured Chloe’s face as best she could, casting out an invisible net that she prayed would reach far enough. The net soared high and wide, sparkling and glittering like huge crystal butterfly wings. She had a connection with Chloe that made the spell possible, and that connection was Sorin. He was the one who had seized Nevada from her home years ago, and now he had set his sights on Chloe. They shared a common enemy.
“Beware,” Nevada whispered. She was acutely aware of the passing time. The hour was late; Chloe might already be asleep, might think this contact was part of a dream, a dream to be dismissed or forgotten. She mustn’t forget. “Listen,” Nevada urged in a low chant. “Hear, and remember. Dear God, please remember. You must. Remember.”
She was so intent on getting through to Chloe that she didn’t hear Sorin coming until the door opened. Nevada was severed from the spell so sharply and completely that she jumped and stumbled backward. “Dammit!” she yelped, her hand pressing over her heart in an instinctive motion, as if she could physically still the furious leap of fright. “You scared the crap out of me!” Dammit, for real. She hadn’t been able to send Chloe all the information she’d intended to.
Sorin stopped just inside the door, his head tilted a little to one side as he gave her a bemused look. “You humans say the funniest things when you’re startled. What were you doing?”
You humans. His phrasing told her just how far Sorin was from those long ago days when he, too, had been human. She wanted to ask him if he remembered what it was like to be human, but instead she took a deep breath and thanked her lucky stars that, outwardly at least, she’d been doing nothing more than standing over the old book of spells. “I was concentrating on my work, just like you want. I was trying out a spell.”
He studied her sharply, as he always did, and she felt that gaze to the pit of her stomach. “Did it work?”
“No,” she said sourly. “You interrupted.”
“What kind of spell was it?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s for locating a lost object.”
His gaze got sharper. “That isn’t the spell we want you to do. Stop playing; we’re running out of time.”
“It isn’t playing, it’s using the spells I can do to expand my power base—” She stopped, made an abrupt dismissive gesture. “I’m doing the best I can.” And he’d just let slip that she didn’t have much time left. If she couldn’t break the spell by whenever this deadline was, they’d have no further use for her.
He gave her an inscrutable look, tilted his head toward her in a formal, old-fashioned dismissal, and left as abruptly as he had arrived.
Usually he stayed longer, chatted with her, sometimes even teased her a little in a way that reminded her that he was hundreds of years old and she must seem like not much more than a toddler to him. After he was gone, Nevada felt oddly bereft. She pushed the feeling away and, bracing herself, went back to the book of spells and tried to resume where she’d left off.
It was no good. Whatever spark she’d discovered, whatever link she’d estab
lished, was gone.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Chloe’s feet hurt. She’d been on them from the moment she arrived at work that afternoon; if her feet hurt, she could only imagine how the waitstaff felt. Business at the restaurant had been heavier than usual; traffic always picked up in the summer because of the tourist business, and they also kept their regulars, thanks to consistently good food, impeccable service, and, when required, discretion. Tonight had been nonstop, every table full and people waiting, which was good for bar business, plus a popular senator had brought his lovely wife in for dinner. The staff had smiled and greeted the senator as if he hadn’t been there just last week with his girlfriend. What a schmuck.
At last, though, the place was quiet, the chattering crowd gone, the kitchen cleaned and silent, the lights turned down. Chloe reconciled the receipts with the night’s take, put the cash and credit card receipts in a bank bag for a morning delivery and locked it in the safe, and, while it was on her mind, placed an online order for monogrammed napkins. She checked the kitchen to make sure it was properly cleaned and ready for the morning crew, and texted a message to Jerry, the day-shift manager. Then she wrote a note leaving him the same message, in case his kids got their hands on his cell phone and deleted the text message. It had happened before.
She got paid a little more for working the night shift, because of the hours and the extra work—the restaurant did more business at night—but it was Jerry’s choice. He had a wife and kids and he liked being home in the evenings. That suited Chloe; she was a bit of a night owl anyway, and lately even more of one.
She could have put the restaurant to bed and been out of there, but she puttered about for a while longer, delaying going home. When she was at work, she didn’t see braids or hear disembodied voices. She couldn’t in all conscience delay for very long, though, because the bartender, Carlos, was waiting to walk her to the Metro station, as he did on the nights she didn’t drive to work. She’d have preferred taking the Metro all the time, rather than fighting the D.C. traffic, but it was open late only on Friday and Saturday evenings. The other three shifts she worked, she had to drive.
All day she’d tried to come up with an explanation for what she’d heard in her kitchen last night after work. It would be so easy to write the episode off to imagination, but she didn’t think she had that much of an imagination. She hadn’t been drinking, and she had no history of mental problems—not yet, at least. Maybe. She hoped. The way things were going …
She might put what she’d heard down to some bizarre sound wave carrying from a neighbor’s house, or a radio or television somewhere. Could sound waves do that? Weird things happened with electronics all the time. But the fact that the voice had called her name blew that theory out of the water.
She even tried to convince herself that she’d been sleepwalking, but dammit, she hadn’t been; she’d been wide awake, which was why she’d been in the kitchen at that hour, drinking milk. If even one of these theories would at least stay in the damn boat, much less in the water, she’d be satisfied, but no, that one was blown out, too.
Even worse, during the busiest part of the night she had suddenly felt … weird. That was the only word she could come up with to describe it. Not exactly dizzy, not exactly sick, just suddenly disconnected, as if she were a half-second out of sync with time, and there was a kind of golden shimmer behind her eyes that faded in just a few seconds, and after that she felt perfectly normal. Weird.
The aortic aneurysm she’d lived with for so long wouldn’t affect her brain. If she’d thought there was even a chance that that was the case she would’ve spent last night at the ER. She tried hard not to let the aneurysm affect every aspect of her life, not to tie everything that went wrong in her life to it; if she did that, then whether she lived a long life or died tomorrow, the stupid little thing won. Sometimes, though, blaming stuff on it was better than not, because then she’d at least have a reason; too bad it wouldn’t work in this case.
None of the possibilities she was left with were good: she was down to brain tumor or mental illness.
The doors were locked, the restaurant quiet and in order. Carlos was waiting. Chloe sighed and got her purse, and together they went out the employee entrance. She set the security system, then locked the door behind them.
“You okay?” Carlos asked as they walked down the brick pathway behind the row of shops and restaurants. The lighting was adequate, and no one had ever had any trouble in this neighborhood, but she had to admit she’d always been grateful for his protective company. “You’ve been a little quiet tonight. Busy, but quiet.”
“I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping much for the past several nights.” Understatement of the year.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing I can put my finger on. Just odd dreams that wake me up, then I can’t go back to sleep.” She wasn’t inclined to share the details, to tell him about that stupid braid or the voice or the possibility that she might be cracking up. Some things weren’t for sharing.
“Maybe you’ll catch up on sleep tonight.”
“I hope. I’m going to try drinking milk before I go to bed instead of waiting until after one of those stupid dreams wakes me up.” That wasn’t much of a game plan, but it was the best she had. She didn’t want to start taking sleeping pills, though she didn’t rule them out as a last resort. She just hadn’t reached that point. But she couldn’t swear that tomorrow wouldn’t have her there.
The Metro station was convenient to work, and on the other end she had a brisk, ten-minute walk ahead of her. Carlos took the Metro home, too, though he got off at a different station and then got on a different line for the next leg of his trip home. Because it was a weekend, there were enough people on the train that she felt safe and comfortable; several of them even got off at the same station she did, and they all took the long escalators up to the street.
It was a nice, quiet night. The nearby businesses were closed and most of the people in the residential neighborhood she soon turned in to were long asleep. A sliver of moon was setting, just peeking through the heavy summer foliage. Even though the neighborhood was calm and respectable, Chloe followed her mother’s orders and gripped her pepper spray in one hand and her keys in the other. She’d never had to use the spray and so far the keys hadn’t been needed for anything other than unlocking the door, but she was enough of her mother’s daughter to have them out anyway; if by some awful chance she needed the pepper spray and didn’t have it in hand, she’d feel like the biggest moron on the planet, assuming she was still alive to feel anything. She wasn’t afraid, but she was prepared.
Chloe liked her nighttime hours, liked that her timetable was slightly off from the majority of the people around her. She enjoyed sleeping late, when she could sleep, and she liked the silence of the night. She liked the sensation that she was completely alone as she walked the deserted streets, and she even liked the sound of her steps on the sidewalk, shadowed by the ancient trees in full leaf. The air on a warm summer night had that special, summery smell, of flowers and mown grass, and warmth that had been soaked up by the concrete beneath her feet. There was something peaceful about it all.
As she passed by one house, which was small and neat, much like her own, she saw the flickering of a television beyond thin curtains. So, someone else was awake in this neighborhood. Another home was completely dark, while yet another was well lit outside but dark inside. The differences made her wonder about her neighbors’ lives, what kept them up late or sent them to bed early. Did they ever wonder about her, or did they go about their lives pretty much oblivious to everything except their immediate surroundings?
Her steps slowed. Her own house, half a block ahead, was dimly lit by the front porch light she’d left burning. Normally, by the time she reached this point, she was glad to get home, ready to wind down with the routine of washing her face and brushing her teeth, getting into pajamas, maybe indulging in a quiet hour of reading b
efore she turned off the lamp and relaxed into sleep. Tonight, though, tension was already settling between her shoulder blades, tightening her scalp. What would happen tonight? More strange dreams? More voices from nowhere? Or would she finally get a decent night’s sleep?
One of her friends had seen a psychologist for a while, after her husband had left her. Maybe she’d call her, get the shrink’s name and number. That wasn’t what she wanted to do with her savings when she was hoping to save for a down payment on the house and have extra cash in case her car needed a new something or other, and another semester of school was right around the corner, but none of those things would do her a bit of good if she didn’t get her head on straight.
She had reached the short sidewalk that led to her front door when a sound at the end of the street made her pause. She cocked her head to the side, listening. Music? Then the music stopped abruptly and she heard the murmur of a deep voice, and she realized what she’d heard had been the ring tone of a cell phone. She couldn’t see anyone, though, no matter how she strained her eyes. Just the knowledge that someone was out there made the hair on the back of her neck lift, because she never saw anyone else out and about at this hour, not in this quiet neighborhood.
“Chloe! Beware!”
The words had barely whispered through her mind when he moved, darkness blurring into the deeper darkness of the trees, before he stepped out onto the sidewalk.
A man stood at the end of the street, just barely caught in the light from a streetlamp at the end of the block. He held a cell phone to his ear, and he was still talking. Chloe narrowed her eyes, trying to see better. He was tall, and he wore a long dark coat that was too heavy for summer—any coat was too heavy for the humid heat of D.C. A whiff of a breeze caught his long hair, which was blonder, and longer, than her own. He wore sunglasses, and when he stepped forward, more directly into the light of the streetlamp, he smiled at her.