by Laken Cane
“You’re saying the virus is something almost like another being, and it lives inside me. It was meant to kill you, it hates you, and it is that virus that takes control of my brain and makes me go apeshit when I see you.”
He hesitated, surprised. “Yes,” he said, finally. “That is exactly right.”
I smiled, but it was more of a stretching of my lips than a real smile. “You’re wrong. I want to kill you, Amias. I do. It’s all me.” And my rage began to stir at the thought.
“No. Not only you, my love.”
I met his stare and could not look away. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe anything you say. There was no infection. You’re just evil.”
“You should have died,” he continued, not acknowledging my words. “But you lived, and you became mutated. The virus, my bite, and something inside you—something you were born with—combined to change what you were into what you are.”
“I’m human,” I said, my voice hard. “That’s all I am.”
“Certainly not all you are,” he chided. “And you know that. As I said, you were activated. I activated you. And that means one thing. Whether you will accept it or not, you are mine, Trinity. And I…I am yours.”
Chapter Eight
That last sentence came out harsh and raw and reluctant, as though he hadn’t wanted to add it but couldn’t help himself.
I laughed, the sound rusty and fake. “I’m not yours, vampire. If I were yours, I probably wouldn’t want so badly to rip out your heart.”
“You’re angry,” he said.
“Angry.” I widened my eyes. “Angry doesn’t begin to describe it.”
He shrugged. “You fought off the toxin in my bite, but even now, some of it remains. I imagine it always will.” He leaned forward slightly, then gave a tiny smile of satisfaction when I recoiled. “Humans are not meant to live through that damage.”
“How did you fight it off? If you were bitten by some toxic vampire, why are you walking the earth like a normal monster? Why aren’t you out there killing humans?”
He studied me, something secretive and dark in his eyes. Finally, he spoke. “I fought off the virus because I bit you. It took me a very long time, but I triumphed. I am no longer mad, Trinity, because of you.” His voice softened and became velvety and caressing and tender. “Essentially, you saved me.”
Suddenly chilled, I shivered. “Believe me when I tell you I did not save you on purpose,” I snarled.
He nodded. “I realize that, of course.” He hesitated. “I told you I need your help. This world needs your help. You can give the true death. You can stake vampires. You can kill us. I watched you with the vampire behind the bar. You killed him. The humans like to call your kind hunters. Exterminators. Butchers. But my people have a different name for you.”
“Yes?” I asked, curious despite myself. “What do you call my kind?”
“Death,” he said. “We call you Death.”
My cell rang again, and though I fully expected I was getting another call from an irate Angus, Miriam’s name was the one on the display.
I looked up when Amias spoke. “They will protect you,” he said. “Those in Bay Town. Let them surround you. With all of us at your back, you will be safe as we can make you.”
The cell stopped ringing as I held it, undecided. “Safe from what?”
“They will come. You killed one of us, and the news will spread rapidly. You will be hunted. In danger.” He walked to me, and even as I held up my hands and flinched, he knelt before me. “There is no happy afterlife for us, Trinity. Only a great, empty despair. This life is all we have and we cling to it with a greediness you will never understand. You can take this life from us, so we will try to kill you. For the rest of your life, we will try to kill you. You think you hate us? It is nothing compared with what we feel for you. For your kind.”
I was frozen in place. My heart slammed against my ribs and my breath whooshed from my lungs. I could not look away from the sincerity in his eyes. “We?” I squeaked.
He shook his head, impatient. “Vampires. I will not hurt you.” His jaw knotted as he clenched his teeth. “Can you possibly not know that yet?”
“What do you want from me?” I whispered.
He grabbed my hands. “For centuries, those of us who remain healthy immediately wrap the sick in silver and bury them deeply in the ground.” He paused, and when he continued, I heard the grief in his voice. Something even deeper and darker than grief. Something that I, in all my sorrow, had never felt. “But they are aware, even in their sickness. They lie there struggling, starving, alone. For centuries, in traps they cannot escape. But they do not die. I want you to kill the carriers. The diseased. It will be a mercy.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have added that last bit, because I had no desire at all to show mercy to vampires. But in killing them, I would also be saving human lives. It was a no brainer. Of course I’d kill them.
“I will kill them,” I said. I yanked my hands from his grip, and then rubbed them on my jeans, as though that might somehow rid me of the lingering feel of him. “I will kill the carriers, and I will kill the regulars.” I leaned forward and got in his face. “I will kill you all.”
“Trinity,” he said, mournfully, then with a fluid speed I could barely follow, he stood. “I left a gift on your bed. I walked through hell to steal it for you. If it accepts you, it will be the only weapon you will ever need. Its name is Silverlight. Guard her well. She will kill the world for you.”
Before I could process his words, he rushed to the window—without appearing to rush—shoved up the window, and was gone.
I was on the fourth floor.
By the time I got to the window, there was no sign of him. I realized he couldn’t have come in through the main entrance because I wasn’t the only one who lived in the building. He might not have needed my permission to enter my apartment, but he would have needed permission to enter the building.
I slammed the window shut against Old Man Winter, who was being quite the bastard, then cranked up the thermostat.
Somehow I doubted that would chase away the cold inside me.
I strode for the bedroom, intent upon seeing what Amias had left on the bed. A weapon, he’d said. A blade.
Silverlight.
My cell rang, and I dug it from my pocket, impatient. I put it on speaker, then tossed it to the bed beside the rather small, leather-wrapped bundle that lay there.
Amias’s gift.
“Miriam,” I snapped. “I’m fine. You don’t need to call every—”
“I’m not checking on you,” she said, her voice as impatient as mine.
I took a deep breath, not taking my stare from the package. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been in contact with someone who can help you. He’s a hunter, too, and one with a lot more experience. He’s coming to town and I want you to meet him.”
I groaned. “I don’t want—”
“He’s a sweetheart,” she interrupted. “But he has some…um…issues. It’s time he became a little more social. He’s also my ex-husband’s brother. You’ll hate each other, but that isn’t important. I’ll send Clayton.”
“Miriam—”
She hung up.
I needed nothing less in the world than another person added to the growing gang of people who wanted, it seemed, to control me. I didn’t need saved, I didn’t need taught, and I didn’t need handled. I just needed them to leave me alone so I could figure out my life…and kill vampires.
I had no idea what was coming or how I’d handle it when it did, but I was not about to let my supernatural friends turn me into a needy little bitch.
They had doubts about my ability to deal with life, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d let their lack of confidence affect me.
I already had, though, hadn’t I?
“No more,” I whispered, and untied the leather cord wrapped around the package.
I held my breath, then pulled back the e
dges of the leather.
Silverlight was a sword.
It lay gleaming on its leather bed, beautiful and deadly and somehow dark, despite its clean, sparkling brightness. The blade was double-edged and looked sharp enough to cut my eyes if I looked too long at it. I held a finger over the blade, tempted to touch it, but something made me hesitate.
The black hilt was surprisingly plain, laced with silver filament, which appeared slightly worn and soft, and though I didn’t touch it, I knew it would feel like butter.
There was a sheath beneath the hilt, a beautiful red sheath—so dark it was nearly black—and decorated with inlays of blood red stones and carved lines and squiggles that stood out in the darkness in which they were embedded. Words, I was nearly certain, but I couldn’t read them. More of the soft-looking silver filaments wound around the case, climbing it like strange ivy. The ends of the filaments trailed, lying around the leather like untied shoestrings. I couldn’t imagine what they were for, but then, I didn’t know a lot about swords and their sheaths, either. Next to the sword, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
But that sheath, though stunning, was so small it would never have held the sword.
I stared down at the gift, a gift from the vampire with whom I would be forever linked, the vampire I despised more than anything or anyone else.
And my mouth watered.
I wanted that blade.
Just as I wanted to hunt and kill vampires, I wanted that blade.
But I wasn’t sure if the blade would want me.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my shirt and finally, I grasped the handle of the sword. Tentatively, gently, I lifted it.
“You’re magnificent.” I ran my finger over the smooth silver, awed.
For a heartbeat there was nothing, then the sword...softened. The hilt changed, moved, and suddenly, I no longer held the hilt. It held me.
It wrapped around my hand like a leather fist, almost seemed to melt into my flesh, and coldness traveled up my arm into my shoulder, icy, painful, terrifying.
I screamed and tried to fling the sword away but it clung effortlessly, moving with me. Part of me.
The blade shrank—not in width but in length—and as I drew back my arm and slammed it against the wall, it turned toward me. It turned on me.
And then it took control of my arm.
I plunged the blade into my own chest, screaming as my flesh parted like water, then closed around the bite of the silver. The sword rippled as it drank, pulling my blood up its blade and into the hilt, contracting, expanding, breathing.
The sword was alive, but I was pretty sure I was dead.
Amias Sato had killed me after all.
Chapter Nine
Amias surely knew I might not survive his dubious gift, but he did not return to see. Perhaps he realized I’d have shoved the blade into his shriveled up excuse for a heart. Or maybe he simply didn’t doubt me.
I lay bloody and panting on the bed, and the sword rested across my ribs like a sated lover. Once again, Silverlight was just a blade.
I pushed it gingerly off my body and slid from the bed, ignoring the dancing bright spots that hung in the air. I’d barely recovered from the first round of blood loss before the second one had occurred, and I was close to fainting.
My cell rang, the sound a little muffled, and I patted my pockets for a good five minutes before I realized the ringing had long since stopped and my phone was not on me. I finally caught sight of it on the bed, snatched it up, grabbed Silverlight, and stumbled to the bathroom. I placed the sword across the sink before I lowered myself to the tiny bench that had come with the place. I peeled off my borrowed clothes, then turned on the shower to let the water heat before I walked to the mirror to investigate the damage.
I shoved slick blood away from the wound, crying out when pain shot through my chest and more blood welled from the gaping hole. The blade had entered right above my left breast, digging and twisting as it had slid in, and unless something magical occurred, I was going to have a hell of a scar.
Mentally, I shrugged. What was one more scar?
Someone began pounding on the front door, and even as I spun toward the sound, I automatically reached for Silverlight.
“Guard her well. She will kill the world for you.”
The sword attached to me. To my hand, my arm, my shoulder, my blood. It had accepted me. She had accepted me. She’d taken my blood and now she was mine.
Or…
I was hers.
The attachment wasn’t something I could see, but I could feel it like a tight, pulsating sleeve, tingling through my flesh, cold, then hot, sizzling like electricity, and rushing like water, almost painful in its shocking intensity.
With her vibrating and eager in my grip, I strode down the hall and to the living room. Before I reached the door, it crashed open.
Silverlight’s power fizzed and went out, and I nearly dropped her. Apparently she sensed no threat.
Clayton the Golem stood framed in the doorway, and somewhere behind him Mrs. Watson shrieked and scampered back into her apartment. I heard her door slam and the clicks of half a dozen locks, loud in the sudden silence.
Clayton and I stared across the floor at each other, neither of us moving, until finally, he stepped into the room and gently closed the door behind him.
And despite my blade, he strode toward me, his stare narrowed and probing, his face unreadable as he surveyed my body.
“You broke my door,” I said, finally.
“I picked your lock,” he replied. “You should get better protection.” His eyes dropped to the sword I held.
“I have protection.” I gently waved Silverlight.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay.” I tilted my head at the sound of water coming from my bathroom. “Now that you see I’m okay, you’ll have to leave. I need to shower.”
“I’m not leaving. I’ll guard you until…”
I frowned at his hesitation. “Until?” I squeezed the hilt of the sword, but she never moved. I could feel her, though, as though she were listening to me. Still, she looked like a cold, beautiful object—not something that could come to life and chew through my ribs.
Clayton stood as still and emotionless as the sword, but there was a spark of light deep in the darkness of his eyes, and he seemed disinclined to hide that from me.
But then I understood. “You’ll guard me until Miriam tells you to stop.”
He said nothing, but his expression hardened. I wasn’t mocking him, just stating facts, but he was sensitive to his forced servitude. I couldn’t blame him for that.
“How can you gain your freedom?” I hadn’t meant to ask the question, but there it was.
“Go clean up. I’ll examine your wound afterward.” He dropped his gaze to my chest.
And just that quickly, I was naked.
Not a bloody, sword-wielding warrior, but a naked human female. And when I lifted my arm to cover my breasts and turned slightly away from him, I saw him smile for the first time since I’d known him.
That smile was full of satisfaction.
For a few minutes, I not only forgot I was unclothed and vulnerable, but I forgot the scars that marred my body—more gifts from Amias Sato.
I shivered and backed awkwardly from the room. “Go away. I don’t want you here and I don’t need a guard. Go back to your mistress.”
I didn’t wait to see the look on his face then as I fled the room, sword in hand.
“Wash quickly,” he called. “Your neighbor has summoned the police, and though I imagine they receive a dozen calls from her each day, they will still be bound to check.”
“Well you’re just downright chatty, aren’t you?” I muttered.
Maybe it was only in Miriam’s presence that he refused to open his mouth.
Still, he was right. The police would come, and I had to get the blood washed off me and a bandage slapped on before they arrived.
I took Sil
verlight with me into the bathroom, and placed it in the linen closet while I showered. I didn’t trust Clayton with my sword. Not even a little bit.
I hurried through my shower and was just ripping open a package of large bandages when Clayton called through the closed door that company had arrived.
“Shit.” I stuffed the bandages into the cupboard with Silverlight before belting on a thick robe and leaving the bathroom. I remembered my phone and darted back into the bathroom to grab it and drop it into my pocket.
My wound was no longer bleeding, so I didn’t worry about the police seeing blood seeping through the fabric of my robe. Still, it was tender and the entire left side of my chest groaned when I so much as moved my arm.
I ran my hand over my damp hair and joined Clayton and two policemen waiting in my tiny living room.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, making sure my eyes were wide and my voice was high with impending hysteria. I wrung my hands, then went to stand beside Clayton. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist. “Clayton? What’s going on? Is something wrong with Nina? Did something happen to her?”
There was no Nina, of course, but the cops wouldn’t know that.
Clayton lifted an eyebrow, but played along. “No. Apparently one of your neighbors called to report that I broke in to your apartment and that you were covered with blood.” He grinned.
Honestly, for a moment I forgot the cops were there. His smile, genuine or not, was breathtaking in its unexpectedness. And it made him look almost…human.
One of the cops cleared his throat. “Ma’am? You invited this man in?”
I took my slightly dazed stare from Clayton and looked at the cops. I wrinkled my nose, glanced once more up at Clayton, whose arm I still held, then back to the policemen. I frowned in puzzlement. “Clayton? Of course. He’s my…friend. Look, I don’t understand what you’re doing here. Nothing’s wrong with Nina?”