Twice Tempted

by Jeaniene Frost

  Yes, Vlad had a Metro station named after him. No wonder he said it was obvious where Cynthiana would expect to meet Shrapnel. The M1 side of the tracks was done in bland shades of white and gray, but the M4 side had orange walls, black granite floors, and yellow neon lights. Somehow, I thought the bolder-colored section was where I’d find Cynthiana. If its vividness reminded me of Vlad, it would probably remind her, too.

  We had an appreciation for him in common, after all.

  Another ear-splitting screech announced a train coming into the M4 station. I leaned against one of the wide columns, my hair falling over part of my face as I studied the commuters. Could that brunette be her? Nope, she had a fresh pimple, something no vampire could get. Maybe the woman in the ball cap . . . no, not with that deliciously throbbing vein in her neck from how she hurried off the track.

  I muttered a curse as my fangs sprang out again. Now I knew how teenage boys with unwanted erections felt. I pretended to take a long sip from my coffee as I silently willed them back into my gums, and then I felt it—an aura of power, invisible yet potent, like a cloud of perfume, and coming right toward me.

  I kept the coffee cup in front of my face as I sought the source. Not there, not there . . . there. Oh yes, I’d know that thick, walnut-colored hair anywhere, not to mention her gliding grace made her stand out like a ballerina amidst a stampede of bulls.

  With my gloved hand, I pinched the wire my scarf concealed and whispered two words into the microphone.

  “She’s here.”

  Then I stared, finally getting a full look at the woman who’d wreaked so much havoc in my life. Taken piece by piece, her face was full of flaws. Her mouth was too wide, nose a trace too long, and cheekbones so high they looked artificially enhanced. Put together, though, she was beautiful in a way you’d find hard to forget because it wasn’t “pretty” beauty, but the bold, striking kind that made it difficult to look away.

  And that’s why I recognized her even though our previous meeting had only lasted seconds. No wonder Cynthiana had used a spell that not only made it impossible to get a fix on her location, but also blocked me from seeing her face. That spell hadn’t just prevented us from hiring a sketch artist to discover her identity sooner. Unintentionally, it had also kept me from recognizing her as the same vampire who’d watched Dawn and Marty’s last performance the night of the carnival explosion.

  Then dark topaz eyes met mine as Cynthiana looked up and stared straight at me.

  Chapter 44

  As casually as possible, I glanced away, pretending to smile at someone farther down the walkway. Just another vampire meeting a friend, nothing to see here. When I could still feel her gaze on me, I headed in the direction I’d been looking, hoping the skin-scouring version of a deodorizing treatment I’d undergone had removed all traces of Vlad’s scent from me. Then I picked a person at random, coming toward her while saying, “Hello!” in Romanian as if we were old friends.

  Something punched me in the back, a hard double tap that made me spin around so fast, I splashed coffee on the person closest to me. As that man began to sputter out a curse, another hard double punch hit me square in the chest.

  I looked down. Silvery liquid oozed out of two holes onto my blazer, but before my mind even registered that I’d been shot, instinct took over. I leapt up, clearing the crowd and hitting the roof of the tunnel in less than a second. A piece of concrete exploded near my head and I spun away as fast as I could. Then gravity brought me back down into the crowd. I landed on a few people, inadvertently knocking them over. As soon as I hit the ground, the screaming started.

  I couldn’t see anything through the sea of legs surrounding me, which meant the shooter couldn’t see me, either. Still, I wasn’t about to use them for cover. Liquid silver bullets might be as dangerous to me as regular ones were to humans, yet thanks to Vlad’s insistence, I wore a bulletproof vest underneath my clothes. The people around me didn’t have such protection. I began to crawl away from the crowd, throwing my coffee cup aside after noticing with disbelief that I’d held on to it this entire time. As I crawled, I pinched the wire underneath my scarf. I hadn’t seen her do it, but it didn’t take psychic powers to guess who’d shot me.

  “The jig is up,” I said shortly. “And she’s firing liquid silver bullets.”

  I reached the end of the crowd and stood up. As if my gaze was drawn, I saw Cynthiana amidst the terrified commuters, almost casually tucking her gun back into her jacket. She must’ve thought the silver bullets had done their job and I was dead beneath the stampeding crowd.

  Vlad’s voice barked through the receiver. “Don’t engage her. Go to the Crangasi station. We’ll be there soon.”

  Cynthiana whirled, either sensing my presence or hearing Vlad’s voice over the noise from the commuters.

  She stared at me for what only took a second, yet felt like an eternity. I don’t know what possessed me to rake my coffee-coated hand over the side of my face, but I did, using the liquid and the material from my glove to wipe away the thick makeup that hid my scar. When she saw it, her dark topaz gaze turned bright green and she bared her teeth in a snarl.

  “You.”

  I expected her to go for the gun again. Or to charge me; she looked as furious as I felt. Both would’ve been fine. I’d lead her away from the people if she charged, and if she shot at me, at least she wouldn’t be shooting at any innocent bystanders. But Cynthiana didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she raised her hands and shouted something in a language I didn’t recognize.

  As if yanked by invisible strings, every commuter who’d started to flee stopped in their tracks. Then they turned around and headed straight toward me, their hands outstretched like claws and their expressions murderous. Over the horde, I saw Cynthiana’s snarl change into a smirk. Then she ran down the subway tunnel in the opposite direction from the Gara de Nord.

  I muttered a curse as I began to plow through the crowd, trying not to hurt them as I shoved them away. I wasn’t shown the same consideration. My hair was yanked, multiple fists punched me, and I was even bitten when a woman latched on to my leg and wouldn’t let go despite my dragging her as I ran. My first attempt to use vampire mind control to get them off me didn’t work. I was either doing it wrong or Cynthiana’s spell was too strong. I managed to get free only after losing my jacket, scarf, and several pieces of my pants courtesy of the biting woman. Then I dashed away before the rest of the mob joined in the melee.

  As I ran toward the Crangasi station, I squeezed the wire near my neck. “She went down the M1 tunnel,” I shouted, then let out a groan as I saw the frazzled end of the wire sticking out of the Kevlar vest. Someone had torn it in two. Without hesitation, I turned around and began to run in the same direction Cynthiana had. With no way to tell Vlad where she was going, if I didn’t track her, she might get away before his people converged on the Metro.

  A shrill sound and blinding light signaled a train headed right for me. I jumped off the tracks and onto the concrete lip of the tunnel, hugging the wall as I continued as fast as I could along the narrow ledge. When the subway passed me, the wind from its velocity tried to suck me into its path, yet my new muscles held me to the wall as if I’d been glued. Once it was gone, I jumped down and dashed along the tracks, my gaze lighting up the darkness with green.

  If not for my enhanced vision, I would’ve missed the slot in the tunnel across the tracks that marked the entrance to another passageway. No light shone from within and the walls were wet from what looked like a recurring leak, leaving a shallow, dirty puddle in front of the entrance. Must be one of the many unused passages that made up the underground labyrinth of the Metro. I paused, glancing between that and the rest of the tunnel. If I were Cynthiana, which way would I go?

  Seeing a muddy footprint leading into the passageway made up my mind. I ran over the tracks and into the narrow entrance, grimacing at the smell that suggested indigents used this as a shelter. Now there was no point trying to tr
ack Cynthiana by scent, though over the stink, I caught an odd, earthy odor. Was that her? If so, she needed to change her perfume.

  I ran faster when I heard sounds ahead, almost like a mad scrabbling. Had Vlad’s people entered the passageway from the other side and caught her? The narrow tunnel forked ahead so I couldn’t see. Just in case Cynthiana was waiting with a gun aimed for my head, I hunched so I’d be a few feet shorter than expected, and then peered around the corner.

  What looked like hundreds of glowing eyes stared back at me. That scrabbling noise increased. So did harsh chirping sounds as a mass of gray fur and fangs charged right at me.

  “You bitch!” I yelled down the passageway.

  Cynthiana wasn’t done with her tricks. Now it seemed she’d bewitched every rat in these tunnels to attack me.

  Despite my revulsion, I began to run toward them. Vampires can’t get rabies, I mentally chanted as dozens of the rodents flung themselves onto me as though I were covered in meat. I crushed several of them as I plowed onward, but just as many held on with razorlike teeth and claws. Pain exploded in almost every part of me except what was covered by the Kevlar vest. Some fell off as they chewed through the rubber wetsuit and bit into my current-filled skin, but more of them took their place.

  I wanted to dance around madly while shaking them off, yet I continued on while only clearing the disgusting rodents I could reach as I ran. If Cynthiana thought she’d empty a clip of liquid silver bullets into me while I was distracted by the results of her latest filthy little spell, she’d thought wrong.

  My refusal to look away from what lay ahead is why I saw them. Large forms hugging the wall of the next corner, covered in so much grime they almost blended into the dank concrete. I caught a whiff of that strange earthy scent even over the stench from the rats and the smell of my own blood, and when I stopped running, they must have guessed that I spotted them because they came out of their hiding place. All dozen of them.

  They looked human, but their eyes gleamed with an inner light no normal person had. It wasn’t vampire green and they didn’t have fangs, yet they moved with a quickness that only came from supernatural ability. When their mouths opened obscenely wide as they charged at me, I knew what they were.

  Ghouls, I realized with a sinking feeling. And ghouls ate people, including vampires.

  Chapter 45

  With rats still chewing on me, I tore off my right glove. A thin line of white pulsed from my hand, growing until it reached the ground. The ghouls looked at it without the slightest bit of fear, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If they were tunnel dwellers attacking me because I looked tasty, they’d cease once I proved not to be easy prey. If Cynthiana had managed to spell them into doing this, then like the rats, they’d continue to come at me until all of them were dead.

  Or I was.

  I didn’t have time to ask what their motivation was. Three of them covered the distance between us with cheetah-like speed. I cracked the whip and spun in a circle, sending more currents into it as I felt it meet the resistance of bodies. Multiple thumps sounded and the surge of voltage through my body made the rats briefly abandon ship. Then they leapt back onto me just in time for me to see that I’d decapitated two out of the three ghouls. The third lay on the ground, trying to pull his lower body back onto the gaping stump that remained of his upper one.

  With a roar, the rest of the pack charged. I spun the whip around me as if it were a large, deadly lasso, the current slicing through anything that dared come into contact with it. Two more ghouls fell lifeless to the ground, joining a growing pile of rats as the voltage in me surged to levels I’d never manifested before. I snapped the whip at another ghoul who got close and he fell in two pieces. The pack circled me more warily now, but from the empty look in their eyes, they weren’t in control of their will. They would keep trying to kill me no matter the consequences. If I wasn’t in a life-and-death fight, I would’ve marveled at the extent of Cynthiana’s powers. “Dabbled” in magic, my ass!

  Another two ghouls dropped in pieces when their lunges were met by the crack of white across their necks. Only four more to go, and thanks to my new vampire strength, my arm wasn’t even feeling tired. More rats began to fall off me as the rubber suit became torn in so many places, electricity leaked out like water through a colander. The rodents’ bodies crunched under my feet as I took the offensive, charging at the ghouls instead of falling back, my whip ruthlessly slashing through them and the rats that still came at me from every direction.

  Now only one ghoul remained on his feet. When I got him in range, I snapped my whip in victory, but it fizzled where it struck. Instead of cutting through the ghoul, it seemed to bounce off him. He looked down as if confirming that he was still in one piece and then his lips pulled back impossibly far, revealing a smile like the open maw of a snake.

  Oh shit. I shook my right hand as if to force more juice into it, but the strand dangling from it only flickered the way flashlights did when they were running out of battery. Then I whirled, ready to run for it, but at the opposite end of the tunnel, new snarls echoed, followed by another wave of musty, earthy air.

  My path to escape was blocked.

  The ghoul I’d failed to kill started toward me. Panicked and out of all other options, I began throwing rats at him. They bounced off his hulking frame, as ineffectual at stopping him as they had been at stopping me. As if to punctuate this, he caught one, biting its head off and spitting it at me. Behind him, two of the fallen ghouls stirred, one hopping toward me on one leg, the other crawling through a carpet of rat bodies because everything below his waist was gone.

  One ghoul I’d have a chance against. Not several of them. Fear made me immune to the spikes of pain as the rats that hadn’t been electrocuted continued to chew their way across my body. Soon it would be more than rodents feasting on me. Despite never being more powerful, I was still helpless to stop my own death.

  Then I squared my shoulders, kicking the rats from my feet. I’d make them earn their meal. Before they ate me, they’d have to catch me.

  Right as I began to take that first step, the tunnel lit up with an orange glow that was both ominous and the most welcome sight I’d ever seen.

  Then Vlad’s voice thundered out. “Leila, get down!”

  I dropped to the ground, putting me nose to nose with countless living and dead rats. In the next moment, an inferno roared down the tunnel, blanketing everything that was more than three feet off the ground. As fire rushed over me in searing waves, I covered my head with my arms and pushed my face deeper into the disgusting mass of bodies. Better to be closer to them than the fire shooting out with the force of a hundred geysers.

  Seconds later, hands closed over my arms. I tried to jerk away, thinking the crawling ghoul had reached me, but then I realized the hands were hot as a stove. When they pulled my arms away from my head, I didn’t resist, and when a booted foot kicked at the swarm of rats around me, I didn’t hesitate to sit up despite the continued roar of flames.

  Vlad bent over me. Except for a two-foot perimeter surrounding us, fire filled the tunnel from ceiling to floor, burning so fiercely I couldn’t hear anything over the crackle of flames. Then he lifted me into his arms and began to walk through that blistering wall of orange and red.

  It parted before him like drapes held back by invisible hands. As he walked, I swiped at the rats still chewing on me, knocking them off into the flames. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel where there was a closed door, there were only a few left that I couldn’t reach.

  Vlad opened the door, carrying me into a far narrower tunnel that could’ve been an abandoned service hallway. Instead of being filled with flames, this space was filled with Vlad’s people. Well, all except one.

  Cynthiana had four vampires restraining her, which might not have been enough considering her real strength lay in magic. Yet with one glance, I saw why Vlad wasn’t worried about her working any spells on his men. She couldn’t utter a
word. Her mouth was filled with so much silver that shards of it protruded from her cheeks.

  “Where’d you get that gag?” I asked.

  He set me down, knocking away the rats that clung to my back before crushing them underfoot.

  “I melted silver knives together and then shoved them into her mouth.”

  Some days, I really loved his dark side.

  “Why didn’t you wait in the Crangasi station?” he demanded, grasping my shoulders now that the last of the rats were gone.

  “She spelled the commuters into attacking me and one of them ripped my wire. I couldn’t tell you which way she went so I followed her.”

  “Why?” he asked with even more emphasis.

  I blinked. “Because she was getting away.”

  His grip tightened while a wave of frustration and another, far stronger emotion washed over me.

  “When I heard the ghouls coming for you, all I cared about was reaching you in time. How often must I tell you that you mean more to me than vengeance? I can live without defeating my enemies, but I cannot live without you.”

  Before I could respond, he crushed me to him, his mouth covering mine in a blistering kiss. I forgot that I was covered in blood, dirt, and rat hair. Didn’t care that a roomful of people were watching, or about anything else. I kissed him back with all the relief I felt at being alive to do so. Now that the fight was over, all the fear I’d held back came rushing forth, reminding me how close I’d come to losing everything. Vlad was right. Enemies would come and go and battles would be won or lost, but nothing mattered more than what we had. Everything else was replaceable.

  When he finally drew away, slow tears were running down my cheeks. “I love you,” I whispered.

  He brushed them away, a sardonic smile twisting his mouth. “And I love you, which is why I intend to lock you inside the house as soon as we’re home.”