Ian said it out loud. “Where are you going?” in a plaintive tone he took to mean she did not want him to leave.
“To find the one who did this.” He did not include what he thought might happen then.
The two women exchanged unhappy looks.
“Alone?” Josephine asked.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you think that either you or Ian will be able to assist me in any way?” He waited a moment for an answer. None came. “I suspect I know who is here and why he has left me this message. Either of you would only provide him a way to make his point.”
Ian turned away. Josephine kept his gaze.
“I suppose,” she said, reluctantly.
Sebastian nodded. “I will return as soon as I can.” It might be longer than he cared to say.
Before either woman could object further, Sebastian took himself out of the house.
Challenge had been called. It was time to answer.
IAN
And with that, he left.
I didn’t like him going. Something seemed off. His eyes had an intensity that set my stomach upside down. I stared at the door for a long time once he’d gone. Listened to his car take off.
Amanda stayed completely still.
I knew that was normal. She wouldn’t move all night. Seeing it still freaked me out. I wondered if changing me had frightened Kent this much – my heart hadn’t quite made it all the way back out of my throat from Amanda’s scream. Then I remembered that he’d done it before. He would have known what to expect.
“She’ll be hungry when she wakes up,” Josephine said from her spot on the couch. I nodded. I remembered that. Hunger was the first thing I had woken up to as a new vampire. I figured I would feed Amanda the same way Kent had fed me until I’d learned to hunt on my own.
My mind showed me the unwanted picture of Amanda bent over my extended arm, her short purple hair falling over her face as she drank. Coming up from me bloody-lipped. And what that would feel like, for me and for her. My throat closed around a cold lump.
What have I done?
My sister, my baby sister, the tiny, crying bundle my parents had brought home from the hospital when I was in kindergarten, was dead. Lying cold and unmoving on my living room floor, smeared in her own blood.
Dead. Like me.
I felt a small hope that maybe now she and I could get some of our old closeness back – and then felt guilty. Mom and Dad couldn’t be part of that. It was selfish of me to want my sister all for me.
Selfish or not, I had her all the same. All to myself.
How hard would it be to tell her?
Hell, I had just started learning things I should have known years ago. What was I going to tell her?
“Ian – ?” Josephine said, looking out the window.
Another car had pulled up outside. It stopped and cut the engine.
“Anyone you know?” I asked.
“Alec again.” She half-smiled after a moment. “I believe Sebastian may have frightened the poor man.”
I got up to see for myself. Sure enough, it was Alec. Slinking up the driveway with his shoulders hunched, looking back and forth. Waiting for someone to jump him.
He came to the door and I met him there, so he wouldn’t knock-and-enter like he had before. He nearly jumped off the steps when I opened the door, eyes narrowed. I held back a mean laugh – I’d probably be scared too, if I’d been in his shoes. Alec didn’t know Sebastian was just keeping us safe from a stranger.
“Alec,” I said.
“Thank heaven you’re here.” He shoved his way into the house. He didn’t make it past the first step.
“Dear God!” he exclaimed. “What happened –” he took in Sebastian’s name on the wall, Amanda lying on the floor, the blood everywhere. “We are leaving right now,” he said. “Get your things, I’ll carry her – I assume you changed her?”
I shut the door. He cocked his head at me. “Yeah, I changed her.”
“Damn. Dammit.” He looked over at the word on the wall – CAIN – and shook his head. “Monster.” Then he turned back to me. “Well, hurry up before he comes back.”
“Before who comes back?”
He made a wide gesture at the wall. “Cain,” he said, like I was an idiot. “Unless you’d like to meet him and I assure you, you wouldn’t. What he did here –” he swept my blood-spattered living room with a hand – “amateurish. Childish. Fooling around. We need to get out of here. I came by earlier and I was lucky I made it out of here alive.” He looked down at Amanda again and clucked his tongue. “Dammit.”
“Sebastian Cain?” I asked. “Long blond hair, moves like a panther, carries a big sword?”
Alec raised an eyebrow – not the artful gesture Sebastian made it, but better than I could do. “So you’ve met him,” he said. “Thank God you’re still alive. Come on.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m not going anywhere. Sebastian’s supposed to come back –”
“All the more reason to be gone when he does,” Alec interrupted, and bent to scoop Amanda up.
I squawked, for all the good it did. I did not want him touching her, but I didn’t know how to make him put her down. Alec started toward the door, which I was blocking, and stopped in front of me.
“Put her down!” I pointed a finger at the floor. He stared at me as if he didn’t quite understand what I meant.
“I said,” I repeated between clenched teeth, “put my sister down.”
His eyebrows puckered. “Are you feeling all right?”
I found myself seriously considering decking him. As soon as the thought occurred, something white-hot blossomed in me. I wasn’t just going to deck him, but pound his face flat, hammer my fists into him again and again, lap up the blood that would drip from his nose . . . I snarled and took a step forward –
“That is Ian’s child you are holding.” Josephine’s clear smooth voice cut over my growl. Alec whirled to face her. I didn’t think he’d even seen her when he walked in. “And by any laws any of us follows, Ian’s property. She has told you to set her child down. I suggest you do so.”
Wow. I stopped in my tracks and felt my fists open, half-scared of Josephine myself for an instant. She stood on the other side of Alec, her eyes shining, her posture a subtle fighting stance I’d seen Sebastian use. I was glad she was on my side right then.
“But Cain –” Alec insisted.
“Is coming back as soon as he can and we intend to be here waiting for him,” Josephine said.
With an unhappy sigh, Alec bent and laid Amanda back on the floor. She behaved exactly like a corpse. I swallowed as every ounce of anger in my body drained out of me.
“Why are you so scared of Sebastian?” I asked. I wanted to run and check on Amanda, but she was a vampire now. If she were hurt, nothing I did would make any difference.
Alec turned to face me, puzzled.
“Cain,” I clarified. “And how the hell do you know him?”
His eyes narrowed again. “I don’t know him, I know what he does. And you’re both fools if you wait around here for him.”
He was skimming around the truth. A muscle in his cheek jumped and he looked away from me too soon. He wasn’t lying . . . not exactly.
“What do you mean?”
“So,” he said instead of answering. “Kent never told you about that either?”
“About what?”
He breathed in, as if what he had to say was immensely heavy and he needed air to get it out. “Cain – Sebastian Cain – belongs to a pack of vampires Kent and I hunted for a while. He was one of the reasons we never could finish the bastards off.”
He might as well have started speaking a foreign language. Hunted – finish off – he doesn’t mean what I think –
He looked me up and down once, frowning. “Because of things like this.” He gestured at my house again. I didn’t follow his hand. I’d seen the mess already.
“Then you’ve got the wrong Cain,” I said. “S
ebastian didn’t do this. He thinks someone he knows did.”
Alec snorted. “Part of his pack. They want him to report. He’s letting them know he killed Kent right now.”
“Sebastian killed the one who – murdered Kent,” I said, barely choking over it. “And they didn’t know each other. And he kept me alive while he was at it. He’s a friend of mine, and I won’t tolerate you badmouthing him. Not in my house.” The last sentence came out as a direct order, my feet planted.
“He’s a monster,” Alec began, but I cut him off with a slicing motion of my hand.
“What he used to be isn’t important,” I said. “He’s my friend now.”
Josephine sat back down on my couch. I leaned against the door, letting my back slide down it until I sat with a thump.
“We didn’t kill them for sport or anything, you know,” Alec said, acidly. “It’s not like it was unprovoked.”
I kept staring at him.
He sighed. “We had to. They were running amok. They’d killed other vampires, humans, and they would have killed us. Kent decided to put a stop to it.”
“By killing them?” Kent?
“I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to understand,” Alec said.
I felt sick. Maybe Sebastian could kill someone like that, because they deserved it. But Kent? My Kent? Maybe we didn’t mean the same man.
“Rule number eight – or whatever – do not kill.” He paused in ticking numbers on his fingers to look at me, while I made a grossed-out face.
“Ian, I am so serious about this,” he’d said, so sincerely that I quit making faces. “I have seen vampires kill, just once, a rapist or a murderer. Then once more, maybe a mercy killing, someone dying, suffering. Then again, and again, until it doesn’t even affect them anymore. Once you start, it’s so hard to care . . .”
The memory ended with a jolt. Alec was still trying to explain some numb thing, while Josephine frowned at his back.
“How long had you been a vampire when you did this?” I interrupted. Maybe this had meant to come later in my own education. More of Kent I didn’t know about.
Alec stopped talking as if I’d yelled. “A few years. Four or five. Why?”
I clutched my knees, my hands trembling. “That’s how old I am! He always told me to be careful not to hurt anyone!”
Alec’s eyes slid away. “Yes, well, he had changed a bit before he made you.”
“Yeah, I guess he did.”
Silence. I tried to imagine the Kent Alec was talking about. Bloodthirsty. Out for revenge. The image wouldn’t come.
“Regardless, we’re getting out of here before Cain comes back and that’s final.” Alec crossed his arms.
“Says who?” I asked.
He aimed a finger at me. “I am the older sibling here. Kent made me for a reason. Gave me a spare key to your home for a reason. You aren’t well enough versed to look after yourself yet and she definitely isn’t.” He aimed his finger at Amanda. “So when I say we’re leaving and you ask says who, the answer is Kent.”
I stared up at him, unmoving. He didn’t try to pick Amanda up again. I could tell he wanted to. My opinion of Alec lowered another notch.
Kent says. Yeah, right Kent says –
– and something else clicked.
“Why didn’t Sebastian know you?”
Alec stared at me stupidly.
“When you came to the house earlier. He had no idea who you were. Why didn’t he recognize you from when you hunted him?”
“They never saw us,” Alec said, as if it should be obvious. “We watched them from a distance, and used this –” he tapped the side of his head – “to lure them out.”
That psychic thing. The one I might be able to do. They used it to draw people – other vampires – out of their hiding places and kill them. Alec. And Kent.
Alec actually raised his nose half an inch. “Cain would have every reason to kill Kent himself, then get close to you to do the same.”
I snorted. “He’s had lots of opportunity to kill me, Alec. Lots.”
Alec looked away again. “If you think.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere until Sebastian gets back.”
He threw his hands up. “Get yourself killed, then. But don’t think this is what Kent wanted, and don’t think for a minute I’m going to join you.”
“No one asked you to, Alec,” I said. “Not even Kent.”
Instead of storming off, like I expected, he reached into his coat pocket. With an angry yank, he pulled out a manila envelope, folded and much-abused. He held it out imperiously to me. I looked up his arm at him, frowning.
“I found this in Kent’s belongings,” he said. “There’s a card for legal counsel, among other things. It’s for you.”
I stared at it and did not reach up to take it. “Why didn’t you give it to me last night?”
“I thought it might have been meant for me.”
“You took something from my house without even talking to me about it?”
His eyes flashed at that. “I took it because I thought it might have been for me. It wasn’t, so I’m returning it.”
I wanted to ask why he thought it would be for him, why he took it, if he stole that copy of my house key, too . . . but I felt pretty sure I wouldn’t like the answers. I took the envelope. Once I had it I glanced down at it, only then wondering what it contained. If I wanted it, given what I’d just learned about Kent.
“There.” Alec said. “Thank you. And now if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to do than commit suicide. Good night.”
He waved me away from the door. I moved. Just before he stormed out, he paused to give me a serious look. “Remember what I said about Cain,” he said, and took himself out.
I glared after him for a good minute, then sighed and looked down at the envelope in my hand. Just a plain manila envelope, opened, nothing written on the outside at all.
“Do you know what this is?” I asked Josephine, holding it up.
She shook her head. “Kent never said anything about it to me.”
With my teeth clenched, I opened the flap and riffled through the stack of papers inside. A card for legal counsel, as Alec had said, was paper-clipped to the top page. Aside from that, I could only make out a bunch of official-looking documents.
No letter. Nothing personal. I kind of wanted something personal. Josephine looked over my shoulder and nodded. “Your inheritance,” she said quietly. “These are legal records of Kent’s property and the contact information for his attorney. He had this all set up already.”
That should have been good news. Instead, it made me sad and more confused. He had put together a will, leaving me his things, but he hadn’t told me that he was in any danger. I set the envelope on the floor next to me.
Sunrise kept getting closer. We had been waiting for Sebastian for hours.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked out loud, glancing at the window.
Josephine must have known which “he” I meant. She stared out the window with reddened eyes and shrugged.
STREETS
Now that Sebastian was alone, a different emotion pressed hot against the inside of his ribcage, spreading up to clench his shoulders. A familiar feeling. Anger.
He pulled the Vector over and let himself out. He was uncertain where he might find Specter, but he had an idea. The images left at Ian’s house held a message. Amanda was part of that message, as much a part as the word on the wall. Not just in that she provided her blood, though that also played a part. Her relationship to a vampire indicated Specter’s interest in that vampire. Ian. Amanda’s death meant something else – first, that Ian was marked for death. Second, that Specter would await Sebastian in the nearest cemetery. And so Sebastian had come.
The rain had stopped, taking with it the sounds of stormy weather. Aside from a few crickets, the night was still. Sebastian stood before the marble gate posts, arms crossed. This was the nearest resting place. If he
did not find them here, he would need to rethink his interpretation of the message. If he did find them . . .
Then I shall see them.
He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and stepped between the stone columns into the graveyard. He did not bother hiding himself. That was not the point of this visit. Nor did he silence his steps. Let them hear him coming.
Within a handful of paces, he caught sight of them. He watched them from the corner of his eye as they watched him, hidden in shadows where mortals would have missed them. Members of his pack. Vampires he had once fought beside, whom he had not seen in at least five decades. He still recalled their shapes, their postures – as they surely recalled his.
There were some few he did not recognize. New ones. These did not hide themselves half so effectively as those he had trained with, but their ability did not interest Sebastian so much as their very presence. It meant Specter’s pack had grown in Sebastian’s absence.
All in all, Sebastian counted two he found familiar and three he did not. There were more, he knew, off elsewhere. On missions, guarding territory in the Old World, pursuing other ends. Others that could, nonetheless, be summoned to aid their pack in a matter of days. A separation of even entire continents did not mean losing contact. The pack needed one another, needed the ability to become greater than its individual members. To call for help meant losing face, but it was more foolhardy to refuse to do so.
As, he could only guess, the shape-changer had known all too well.
A disturbing thought. If the shape-changer truly had belonged to the pack, when had he called for help? Only a night or two ago? Or when Sebastian had first become involved? How long had the pack been here? The answer tried to unsettle Sebastian. He did not let it. The pack had been here for as long as they had been here. They had chosen to reveal their presence tonight, and it was tonight he must worry about.
He was deep inside the cemetery now. The shadow-shapes became clearer, growing bolder about showing themselves. Sebastian let them. He had not come for them. He followed the path that led past the stones, nearing the center of the cemetery –
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