The Secret Night

by Rebecca York

  But Caldwell wasn’t listening. He went on ignoring her as he delivered his message to the faithful.

  Nick looked around at the eager expressions of the men in the crowd. They were revved up, ready for the show they knew the Master was about to give them. And in their heightened state, they were especially dangerous.

  Caldwell was at the end of his speech, and Nick knew what came next. They hadn’t much time. Taking Emma’s hand and tugging her a few steps back into the trees, he said, “I’m going to rush him. You stay up here, and when I’ve killed him, you free Margaret and get out.”

  “Nick, no!” she whispered, urgency coloring her tone. “Caldwell can’t do to my mind what he does to yours.”

  He gave his head a quick shake. “He caught me off guard, but he won’t be able to lay me out again. I’ll—”

  “No! Nick, please! I dragged you into this mess, and I feel horrible enough about it as it is. To have any chance at all of getting out of it alive, we can’t risk having Caldwell zap you again. I need you to be your self.” Her fingers wrapped around his forearms and squeezed. “Please.”

  He saw the pleading look in her wide, blue gaze. “All right,” he sighed, thinking that if he survived the next few minutes and Emma didn’t, he might as well let the rising sun obliterate him.

  “Good,” she said. “So how are we going to do it? You said you’d create a distraction. Where?”

  “I wasn’t thinking we’d be doing this in front of fifty or sixty of Caldwell’s inner circle.”

  “I know, but that’s how it is.”

  Moving silently, he crept to the top of the theater and looked down at the stage, trying to calculate their best chance.

  “This woman has sealed her own fate,” Caldwell was saying. “She must pay for the crimes she has committed against us.”

  Nick hated the entire plan. But he couldn’t deny that he and Emma stood a better chance of success together than either of them did alone.

  Reluctantly, he thought for a moment, then began speaking rapidly. “When Caldwell shuts up, he’ll approach Margaret from behind. He’ll spend a few minutes making a show of touching her and playing at lovemaking to give the audience a little sexual thrill. Then he’ll bend down to put his mouth against her neck—probably the left side.”

  Emma stared at him. “You’ve seen him do this?”

  “Yes,” Nick replied flatly, then went on with the instructions. “While he’s doing his act, you slip around to the other side of the theater. It’s dark in back of the spotlight, and everybody will be focused on him. I’ll stay on this side of the stage and stand at the top of the stairs. I can see beyond the spotlight, so I’ll know when you’re in position and I’ll make sure nobody is looking your way while you’re going down the stairs to get up behind Caldwell.”

  He heard her draw a ragged little breath. “Okay.”

  “Use the gun on him the way you saw me use it on the water,” he continued. “Press the button, and the beam will come out the end. But, Emma, you have to get within ten feet of him to do significant damage. Past that, the energy is too diffuse.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  He took her by the shoulders, squeezing gently. “Ready?”

  She nodded again, and he heard the steel in her voice as she said, “Yes, let’s do it.”

  Their gazes met and held, the moment stretching between them.

  Then, afraid he might never see her again, unable to speak the words he wanted to say to her, Nick wrapped his hand around the back of her head, pulled her roughly to him and kissed her hard. It was a brief, frantic joining of their mouths, and in it he tasted warmth and compassion and forgiveness. It was all he needed—and more.

  He let her go, knowing that if he lived another hundred and fifty years, he’d never find a woman he loved more than he loved Emma.

  And a whole lot of good it would do him.

  EMMA MADE HER WAY around the top of the theater, heart pounding, senses tuned to every sound from the pitch-black woods, as well as from the stage below.

  “It is time,” she heard Caldwell say. “In this place, you will hearken to my power. But when you leave this theater, you will not remember what happened here. Now, repeat my order.”

  As one, a chorus of male voices intoned, “We will not remember.”

  Emma stifled a sound of disgust. So that’s why nobody talked about what happened in this place. They didn’t remember.

  The Master went through the drill once more, ordering them to forget and securing their agreement. Then he turned from the audience and approached Margaret.

  Margaret shrank from him, twisting against the ropes that bound her to the stake. “No, Master, please—” Her voice broke off, and she went suddenly, totally still. Emma realized Caldwell had zapped her into submission.

  Stepping up to Margaret, he raised his hands to her head and stroked downward, over her shoulders. Emma expected him to do exactly as Nick had described—put on an X-rated display for the benefit of all the horny goons watching him. Instead, she saw him bend over, lowering his head toward her sister’s neck.

  No, wait, I’m not ready! She hadn’t yet arrived in position, dead-center with the back of the stage.

  She hurried, hoping her haste didn’t cause noise that would draw attention, wondering how long exactly it took a vampire to drain a body of blood to the point of death.

  She didn’t have to find out.

  “Wait, you’re not— That bitch! Where is she?”

  Caldwell’s angry voice rose like a war cry from the stage. A half second later, Emma ran out of the cover of the woods to the edge of the theater. And a half second after that, she looked across at the top of the stairs opposite her position and saw Nick grab one of the torches that marked the entrance to the arena.

  With a bloodcurdling shout, he tossed it into the air so that it sailed into the audience. A man’s shirt caught on fire, and he began to scream. Nick grabbed the other torch and waved it over his head.

  “Who’s next?” he bellowed.

  “Get him!” Caldwell shouted.

  Some of the men jumped to their feet and rushed up the stairs. Others remained where they were, seemingly stunned.

  Nick gave the first of the attackers who reached him an almighty shove, sending him into the men coming up behind him. They fell like dominoes—two, three, four of them—before one managed to remain on his feet.

  Emma didn’t waste time. Quickly, laser gun in hand, she crept down the dark slope of the theater toward Caldwell and her sister. The Master had his back toward her, watching the action at the top of the stairs. A crowd of men were converging on Nick, and she had to fight off all her fears for his safety, as well as an overwhelming desire to run like hell in the other direction. The only way to end this was to remove the man who was directing the action.

  Margaret made a moaning sound, and Emma was pleased to see her fighting hard against the ropes that bound her. Had she finally realized how wrong she’d been about Caldwell? Did she now believe he would have killed her with no more remorse than if he’d kicked a dog?

  Emma reached the bottom of the slope and pulled herself up onto the shoulder-height wooden stage. But she still had at least twenty-five feet to go before she’d be within firing range of Caldwell. She started to creep silently toward him when, abruptly, as if he knew someone was behind him, he turned.

  “Who dares…?” He trailed off, having spotted her. “How the hell did you get out?” he shouted.

  “I let her out,” Margaret cried plaintively, “to prove you weren’t going to hurt her.”

  “Your mistake. I’m going to kill you, you bitch. But first I’m going to kill your sister.”

  With a snarl, he charged Emma.

  It took every scrap of courage she had to wait for him to get close enough. Twenty feet…her whole body trembled…fifteen feet…her clammy-cold hand gripped the laser at her side…ten feet.

  She raised the gun into firing position, aiming
directly for Caldwell’s black heart, and pushed the button. A beam of red light shot out of the front end and struck Caldwell squarely on target.

  Stumbling to a halt, he made a strangled sound. “Down here! Come get this bitch,” he bellowed to his followers as he tried to dodge the beam.

  Most of the men were engaged with Nick, but from the corner of her eye she saw a small army turn around and start toward her.

  Margaret struggled desperately with her bonds and finally wrenched herself free.

  “No!” she shouted, launching herself at Emma.

  Emma cried out as her sister imposed her body between the gun and the target. Frantically, she snapped off the light beam. “Down! For God’s sake, Marg, get down!”

  Margaret kept coming. “Stop! Don’t kill him, please!” she gasped.

  Emma’s only option was to grab her sister and fling her off the back edge of the stage.

  Caldwell was right behind her, staggering but still erect. Knowing she had only seconds, Emma aimed and fired again, and again hit the Master directly in the chest.

  He screamed, but kept coming.

  Desperate, Emma tried to sidestep, her aim going a bit wild as she cast quick glances over her shoulder to see where she was going. But all she accomplished was to back herself into the corner of the stage, where her choice was to fall off, allowing Caldwell to jump down on her and finish her, or to stand firm.

  He reached her before she had a chance to make a decision, snatching a handful of her hair and twisting it to hold her. Still, she kept her finger firmly on the laser’s firing mechanism.

  The Master gave her hair a terrible yank. Then, suddenly, he let go. Roaring in anger, he whirled to face the other direction, throwing his arm in front of his head as though to ward off a blow. “Nicholas! Damn you!” he screamed. “Get out of my head!”

  Shooting a quick look at the top of the stairs, Emma saw only a horde of Caldwell’s followers engaged in a brawl. It was impossible to tell if Nick was under the melee. Regardless, she was sure he had attacked Caldwell in the same vampiric way that Caldwell had attacked him earlier.

  Nick’s mental blast wasn’t strong enough to kill the Master, but it gave her the time she needed to do what had to be done.

  She fired at Caldwell’s back, and when he spun to face her again, she hit him in the same spot as before, over his heart, where the hole in his clothing exposed pale but singed flesh. Caldwell made a grab for the weapon and managed to get his hand around it, over hers.

  Still she kept the gun in her grasp and her finger on the trigger. In another few seconds, she felt Caldwell’s fingers slide forward until he was grasping only the barrel of the gun. Then they slid off of that, too.

  A large hole had opened in his chest. With a terrible gurgling sound, he sank to his knees.

  “No. By all the saints, no-oo,” he screamed, his voice ending in a wail of agony.

  He clawed at his chest as though he could dig out the pain. Then he pitched forward, his scream fading to an anguished moan, then…nothing.

  He lay absolutely still, a pool of blood spreading out around him. He was dead.

  For several seconds a wall of silence held the crowd below the stage at bay. Emma, too, was immobilized by what she’d done, her gaze riveted to the dead vampire lying in front of her.

  Then somebody shouted, “Bitch! What have you done?” The angry cry released the men who had been too paralyzed to attack Nick and had, instead, been watching the drama on the stage. Howling, they rose from their seats as one and rushed toward her, murder in their eyes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Emma had nowhere to go. She was backed into a corner of the stage, and her instinct was to jump down and start running up the slope, toward the woods. But she knew she’d never make it even to the trees before they caught her.

  “Stay back!” she cried, raising the weapon she had used on Caldwell. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will!”

  They kept coming, piling up the steps at the front of the stage, plowing across it toward her.

  She hesitated briefly. It had been easy to justify wiping Caldwell from the face of the earth, but she couldn’t kill men who had been under his mental control and who undoubtedly were still acting on his orders.

  Pointing the laser weapon at the stage, she seared a line in the boards. Smoke rising from the charred wood brought the raging horde to a stumbling halt.

  “This gun will do the same thing to you!” she shouted.

  Clearly unsure of what to do, they paced and turned and bumped into each other, hurling curses. Then someone among them gasped and pointed to Caldwell.

  Emma’s gaze followed the man’s outstretched arm, and she stared in horror at the thing that lay sprawled on the stage. As they watched, his flesh was melting off his bones.

  “Look!” she yelled. “See what he really is.”

  A sound of dismay went up from the crowd.

  “What the hell?” somebody shouted.

  “Yes, hell!” Emma agreed. “That’s where he’s going.”

  The exposed flesh on Caldwell’s body was completely gone now, and the bones were beginning to melt. The skull collapsed, and beneath the black tights and tunic, the skeleton shriveled and shrank away. Finally there was nothing left but a heap of black cloth.

  Some of the men sank to their knees and began to wail in grief. Others stood shivering in fear.

  “Take a good look,” Emma said to them, her voice loud and strong despite her own trembling. “Do you know why he’s disappeared like that? He wasn’t human! He was a vampire! A centuries-old vampire!”

  Stunned silence greeted her announcement.

  “A what?” someone whispered.

  “A vampire,” she repeated. “And now he’s turned to dust.”

  “No!” another man shouted. “It can’t be! It’s a trick!”

  “What more evidence do you want? Or is he still messing with your heads, even in death? He tricked you into staying here to be his food.” Emma paused, trying to gauge the men’s reactions. Tempering her tone, she added, “He’s gone now, and you can go back to being yourselves. You’re safe.”

  But as her gaze scanned the crowd, taking in their expressions, she wasn’t certain at all that she was safe. It appeared to her that they were plotting their revenge.

  Gripping the laser gun, she looked at the fight still raging at the top of the amphitheater. Where in God’s name was Nick?

  NICK FOUGHT FOR HIS LIFE, beating off one after the other of the men assaulting him. He threw some back, slamming them into the mob that kept coming, but they simply trampled over their fallen comrades in their drive to get to him.

  His stamina was waning. Breaking out of his shackles, flying across acres of the estate to find Emma, hurling the bolt of energy into Caldwell’s mind—all of it had weakened him, and he had been barely recovered from the Master’s earlier mental blow.

  As he tried to fend off the angry mob, he felt another threat creeping relentlessly toward him: the sun. It was about to burst over the horizon. If he couldn’t extricate himself from the melee before then, he’d be finished.

  But he couldn’t go anywhere until he was sure Emma was safe. Where was she? Had she killed Caldwell? Or had the Master overcome her?

  The fear that she was still in mortal danger kept him fighting for his own life, defending himself in a desperate effort to break free of the mob and get to her.

  Dimly, from far away, he heard a whirring sound that he couldn’t immediately identify with the enraged attackers swarming over him. They fought like madmen, punching, kicking, doing damage any way they could. His ribs cracked. His nose broke. His kidneys screamed in agony. Still, he fought on, praying he could get to Emma.

  In the darkness, a shot rang out. Then another.

  The crowd of men beating on him went still for an instant, then began to scatter.

  Dazed, Nick staggered on his feet.

  “You look like crap.”

  The vaguely fam
iliar voice, coming from his right, brought him around to see Alex Shane striding toward him.

  “I’ll be…okay,” Nick insisted. “Emma…”

  “She’s fine,” Alex said. “She held the mob off with…what the hell was that thing, anyway? Looked like a damned flashlight.”

  “A laser gun. I didn’t have time to refine the design.”

  “She singed their toes with it.”

  Light footsteps clattered on the steps. Turning, he saw Emma rushing toward him.

  She stopped five feet away and gasped. “Oh, Lord… Nick!”

  “I’ll be fine.” Swaying on his feet, he turned his gaze toward the horizon. “But the sun…”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Bring a stretcher,” Alex shouted.

  “I can walk.” Nick turned and began limping toward the house. Two men with a stretcher caught up with him.

  “You won’t make it in time,” Emma said gently, walking at his side. “Lie down.”

  He did it for her, and as soon as he got horizontal, he wondered how he had managed to stay on his feet.

  “He’s allergic to the sun,” she said, speaking to Alex and the other unfamiliar men. “Get him inside. Fast.”

  It was too late. The first rays shot over the horizon, and Nick felt needles of pain digging into his skin. It was worse than the injuries from the fight. The men carrying the stretcher began to run.

  “The office,” he said, his voice so weak that he could barely hear it above the roaring in his ears. “Blackout…shades.”

  “Right,” Emma said, keeping pace with the stretcher bearers. “This way,” she told them.

  He felt the difference the moment they passed through the French doors of the office, and in the next instant, someone pulled the blinds and the needles stopped stabbing into his flesh. Still, he was losing consciousness fast. The stretcher, it seemed, had legs, and he felt the jerk and heard the clicks as they were pulled down and locked into place, forming a bed.

  He heard voices murmuring about the chains he’d left lying on the floor, with their broken, twisted links. When someone else mentioned a doctor, he tried to speak, tried to stop them.