They’d made it about a block when something hurled itself at them with a menacing shriek, moving so fast it was a blur. Lu felt all the muscles in Joey’s back ripple as he spun and lashed out with the blade, a low growl rumbling in his chest. The sword swung in a wide arc, its fluid movement unhindered even as it passed right through whatever had been attacking them.
And then Joey was running again, Lu’s arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. He chuckled a little and said, “It’s a good thing I don’t actually have to breathe.” She realized her arms were wound tightly around his neck and relaxed her grasp slightly. Even if he didn’t need oxygen, his voice had still sounded a little strangled.
“Incoming,” he whispered into her ear as he dropped into a roll on the pavement, his body shielding hers as something leapt over them.
He was back on his feet in an instant. They were in the middle of the road, in a yellow pool of light from an overhead streetlight. And then they weren’t.
Lu gasped as the world swayed wildly around her. She looked down, somehow they were high up. It took her a beat to realize that Joey had leapt onto the streetlight. A hunched figure with a monstrously contorted face and wild red eyes looked up at them, a moment too late as Joey jumped down onto it, slashing the creature’s chest. It screamed, a horrible inhuman sound as it lashed out, its long razor-sharp claws raking across Joey’s arm and down Lu’s thigh.
Lu cried out as her leg stung. She looked around just in time to see Joey’s sword make contact with the creature’s throat, slicing through it effortlessly, detaching its head from its body.
And then the thing was crumbling, breaking apart as it fell. It was so bizarre and horrific that Lu couldn’t look away. Before it hit the pavement it was gone, nothing left of it besides a little dust, already being distributed by the breeze.
Joey exhaled deeply, which was probably force of habit since he didn’t actually breathe.
Just then tires squealed close by, the passenger door swinging open as the black Impala bucked to a halt beside them. Joey threw the sword into the back seat and jumped into the car, still gripping Lu tightly, as Alastair gunned the engine, rocketing forward just as another creature leapt into the road. The body hit with a disgusting thud and rolled over the top of the car.
“She’s bleeding,” Alastair said, shifting gears and never taking his eyes from the road.
Joey nodded. “I know.” And then he added cheerfully, “Hey look, you remember how to drive.”
“It’s like fighting,” said Alastair. “I can do it as long as I don’t think about it.” The car careened around a corner and launched its way up a quiet residential street, leaving Bryn’s hidden house further and further behind them.
“How did all of that not attract the attention of every person in San Francisco?” Lu asked, her voice shaking.
“Bryn’s entire neighborhood is a false reality,” Joey explained. “No one lives in any of the surrounding houses. None of them are real. If you look on a map, those streets don’t even exist. And extending out from there maybe mile in every direction is a distraction spell, making it impossible for humans to notice any supernatural activity going on around them.”
“Nothing bizarre about any of that,” Lu muttered.
She was still straddling Joey, sitting on his lap as she stared intently out the rear windshield, watching for anything pursuing them. Her entire body vibrated with adrenaline, her breathing jagged.
“Hey,” Joey said gently, giving her a hug, “We’re ok now. You can relax.” He rubbed her back soothingly, and she realized that his t-shirt was wadded up in her tightly knotted fists. She forced her hands to unclench, and slid onto the seat between him and Alastair.
“What were those things?” she asked, turning her head to look out the back of the vehicle again.
“Vampires,” said Joey.
She shook her head. “No. You’re a vampire. That was something else.” She was still staring distractedly out the rear windshield.
“Lu,” he said gently, “Before any more Q and A, we need to fix you up. You’re injured.”
Lu focused on Joey, knitting her brows together. She noticed the blood on his forearm then and said, “You’re the one that’s hurt. That thing got you with its claws.”
“I know,” he said, his voice calm and level. “He got you too. And it’s more important that we stop your bleeding first, before you go into shock.” He looked down at her leg, and her eyes followed his gaze.
Three long gashes ran the length of her right thigh, and blood poured out between the sliced denim. Joey’s hand was clamped firmly at the top of her leg, acting as a tourniquet. She blinked dazedly at the wounds. “But I don’t feel it.”
“It’s probably all the adrenaline,” Joey told her. “Look, I need to do something kind of personal to you. Unless you feel more comfortable with Allie doing it.”
“Doing what?” Alastair asked, weaving the car smoothly around a slow-moving pickup truck.
“We need to stop Lu’s bleeding, and the quickest way to do that is to lick the wound,” Joey said matter-of-factly. “And we need to do it fast before she loses too much blood.”
“Gross,” said Lu.
“Go ahead,” Alastair told Joey, “Before she passes out. I really can’t pull over anywhere.”
Lu crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow at Joey. “I know your saliva heals, but can’t you just spit on it or something?”
He frowned and asked, “Isn’t that more disgusting than me licking it?”
“It’s gross either way,” she told him. Then she sighed. “Fine. Whatever. Get it over with.”
Joey slipped down onto the floor at Lu’s feet, then lowered his blonde head to her leg. She felt the long, slow brush of his tongue against her skin. “If you enjoy this, I’m going to hurt you,” she told the back of his head.
He smiled at that, then ran his tongue down each of the gashes, slowly, deliberately. When he went for another pass, he let go of the spot he was squeezing on her upper thigh and folded his hands chastely in his lap. Again his tongue ran the length of her exposed skin. And just like that, the bleeding stopped.
Joey returned to the seat beside her after a minute. He licked his lips then, despite himself.
“You enjoyed it,” she scowled.
“Only a little.”
“I told you not to.”
“It’s not my fault that you taste good,” he told her.
She pointed at his bleeding forearm. “Aren’t you going to fix yourself?”
“In a minute,” Joey said.
“Why in a minute?”
He smiled broadly. “Because I’m still savoring the taste.”
That earned him a punch in the shoulder.
“Ow! Hey! That’s the thanks I get for preventing you from bleeding out.”
Lu sighed dramatically and he said, “Ok, ok.” He raised his arm to his mouth then and quickly and efficiently ran his tongue over the scratches. She made a disgusted sound and he said, “What?”
“That’s not how you licked me. You totally enjoyed it. On purpose.”
“At the risk of getting socked by you again, I will just say that I definitely gave you the right nickname.” Joey smiled pleasantly at her.
“Why is that, exactly?”
“Because you taste really sweet, Cupcake,” Joey said, then pretended to cower behind his raised hands.
“Ew!” Lu attempted to turn her back to him in the crowded front seat.
She studied Alastair’s profile, his dark eyes reflecting the lights of the traffic around them. “How did it go for you back there?” she asked him. “Any problems?”
He shrugged. “I managed to make it to the car without killing anything.”
“Do you think Bryn’s ok?” Lu asked.
Alastair stretched out a long leg and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He retrieved a small red cell phone and handed it to her. “Here, call him and let’s find out.”
“Where’d this
come from?”
“Bryn gave me the phone this evening when you were changing. All his numbers are programmed into it,” Alastair told her.
Lu pressed speed dial one, and the warlock answered on the first ring. “Alastair,” he said, his concern coming clearly through the phone line. “You all alright, mate?”
“It’s Lu, and we’re all fine,” she told him. “How about you?”
“All’s just peachy here, love,” he said, injecting a little enthusiasm into his voice. “As predicted, the baddies cleared out as soon as you lot took off. I’m not sure which way they were headed, everyone just sort of scattered after you left. I lost track of that warlock child almost immediately.” Lu could hear Bryn taking several swallows of something, and guessed it was whiskey.
“Let me talk to him,” Alastair said, and Lu handed over the phone.
“Thank you again, Bryn,” he said. “For everything. And I’m so sorry about the damage to your home.”
“Ach, it’s nothing. Couple days and it’ll all be good as new.”
“I’ll be in touch soon,” Alastair told him. “If you need anything, please call us.”
“You just take care of yourself, Allie and don’t worry about yours truly. I’ll talk to you soon, mate.”
After they disconnected and Alastair slid the phone back into his pocket, Joey asked lightly, “So what’s the plan now, boss?”
“Now,” Alastair said, “I’m going to go see Augustine.”
Chapter Sixteen
“That’s hilarious, dude,” said Joey. “But really. Where are we headed?”
“To see Augustine,” Alastair repeated.
Joey sighed. “If you really wanted to see Augustine, all you’d have had to do was go out in front of Bryn’s house while it was being bombarded. I’m sure he was behind that.”
“He wasn’t there,” Alastair said.
“How do you know?” Joey asked.
“Because I would have felt him if he was.”
Joey shook his head. “No, dude, you aren’t connected to him the way other vampires are with their makers.”
“I wasn’t before. Or at least I assume I wasn’t,” Alastair said calmly. “But now I actually hear him very clearly.”
Joey stared at him. “Since when?”
Alastair said, “Since this afternoon. I think Bryn accidentally opened up some sort of connection to my maker when he was trying to remove that spell. It was unintelligible at first, almost like static, but it’s just kept getting stronger over the last couple hours, as if a radio dial were slowly being tuned to a channel.”
“God I hope it isn’t a two-way thing,” Joey said, his body tense, “because if he suddenly feels you too, he’ll be able to find you.”
“He won’t have to find me, because I’m going to find him.” Alastair’s voice was steady, resolute.
“Give me the phone, Alastair.” Joey’s voice rose slightly.
“Why?”
“Because I need to call Bryn and tell him to fix this. I don’t know what he did, but if a channel was opened to Augustine, something seriously got screwed up.”
“It’s ok,” Alastair told him. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”
“Allie,” Joey’s voice was still rising, “if you go and knock on Augustine’s door in L.A., here’s what’s gonna happen. You’ll say, ‘hi, did you have someone bespell me?’ and he’ll say ‘why yes I did.’ And then his minions will grab you and he’ll chain you up in his dungeon and you’ll spend the next ten or twenty or fifty years being tortured mercilessly by a total psychopath. So believe me when I say, in no way, shape, or form do you got this.”
“We’re not going to Los Angeles,” Alastair said calmly. “Augustine’s on his way here.”
A cold trickle of fear slid down Joey’s spine as he sputtered, “What? Why?”
“He sensed I was in trouble and has been speeding toward San Francisco ever since this afternoon. Our path will cross his in a couple hours, which is why I’m heading south –- so I can meet with him that much sooner.”
Panic welled up in Joey as he exclaimed, “That means Augustine can feel you too, that the connection Bryn opened is two-way. Augustine can track you now. We need to turn the car around and head in the opposite direction, fast!”
“It’ll be fine. He can’t hurt us.”
“Like hell he can’t!”
“Please calm down, Joey,” Alastair said.
“Look, if you’re not concerned for your own safety, think of Lu,” Joey told him. “You can’t take her to that maniac.”
“I’m not,” said Alastair. “I’m going to find a nice safe hotel for the two of you, and then I’m going to see him alone.”
Lu chimed in, “And what exactly do you hope to accomplish with this meeting?”
Alastair said, “From what I’ve gathered, Augustine’s really powerful and probably well-connected. He may have some ideas who that warlock kid is working for, and he might even know how to find them.”
“Well obviously Augustine knows who the warlock’s working for, because that person is Augustine.” Joey sounded exasperated.
“It’s not. I would know if it was.”
“Alastair, I’m begging you, turn this car around. We need to run in the opposite direction, as far and as fast as possible.”
“I think you should listen to Joey,” Lu added.
“Look,” Alastair said calmly, “Here’s the thing. When I say I can hear him, I don’t just mean I’m sensing his emotions. I mean I can hear his thoughts, as clearly as if I’m thinking them myself. And every minute that passes, or possibly the closer I get to him, the clearer and clearer it becomes.”
Joey and Lu both stared at Alastair’s profile in stunned silence.
“So you see,” Alastair continued, “Right now I have the upper hand, because I know what he’s thinking. And who knows how long this advantage will last? The connection may start closing up again at any time. I also have the upper hand because he’s coming alone, and I know I’m physically stronger than he is.”
“Why would he come alone? Augustine never goes anywhere without at least half a dozen minions,” Joey said.
“When he felt my distress earlier, he thought our maker bond had finally formed. And that rattled him so much that he went running out of his house without telling anyone where he was going, without even grabbing his cell phone. Now he’s regretting coming alone, but he’s still coming.”
“Ok. So I know what we need to do.” Joey’s voice was low, resolute. “We both need to go to Augustine, and we need to kill him.”
“We’re not going to kill him,” Alastair said.
“Of course we are! We’ll never have another opportunity like this!” Joey exclaimed.
“We’re not killing him,” Alastair repeated.
“But--” Joey started to protest.
“No.”
Joey chewed on his lower lip, staring out the passenger window. They were speeding along the Pacific past a broad stretch of sand, a grey sheet of fog steadily unfurling over the water. But Joey was too agitated to notice any of that.
After a long moment Joey managed to get his emotions in check, and tried to sound reasonable as he said, “Ok. So you don’t want to kill him. God knows why. But ok. So here’s what we do: you and I both go to him, and we take him prisoner.”
“I don’t want to take him prisoner. I simply want to find out if he knows anything about whoever bespelled me and attacked Bryn’s house.”
“But you can read his mind,” Lu pointed out. “Can’t you just see what he knows?”
“I can only see the thoughts he’s having as he’s having them,” Alastair said. “He only knows that I’m in some sort of trouble, but he hasn’t thought, ‘I’ll bet so-and-so is responsible’.”
“It’s not worth the risk, Allie,” Joey told him. “Why would you endanger yourself like this? Just in case he happens to know something? It’s so not worth it.”
Alastair glanced at Joe
y then and admitted, “Ok, it’s more than that, more than finding out what he knows. I need to meet him. I need to meet the person that made me a vampire. The person that’s spent centuries pursuing me. I need to look him in the eye and try to understand this force that’s shaped the whole of my existence.” Alastair stared out the windshield for a long moment, then said quietly, “I need to know why I recognized his name when I don’t even recognize my own.”
Chapter Seventeen
A couple hours later, Lu was fidgeting nervously as she leaned against the wall in a motel in Santa Cruz. Alastair took her hand and said, “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Joey raised an eyebrow as they stepped out onto the landing and Alastair pulled the door shut behind them.
“You know Joey can hear you through this door, right?” Lu told him with a little grin.
Alastair smiled. “I know. I just want to pretend we have some privacy.” He grew serious then and took both her hands in his as he said, “I know you’re worried about me going to meet Augustine. I just…I wanted to explain why I have to do this.”
Lu squeezed his hands. “You don’t have to explain. I get it. I know you need answers.”
“I’m not going to let my maker hurt me, Lu. I swear. I’m going to come back to you.”
Lu looked at him closely. At some point the vulnerability in his eyes had been replaced with focused determination. And something else was different about him, too, a subtle change in the set of his jaw, the line of his shoulders. He seemed stronger somehow, more confident. “I know you will,” she said and drew him into a hug.
Alastair swung the door open and looked at Joey. “I won’t recognize Augustine. What does he look like?”
Joey was sitting motionless in a chair by the door, arms crossed over his chest. His voice was flat as he recited, “He’s close to your height with pale blonde hair and blue eyes. Looks like he’s in his late teens. And he comes across as totally harmless and innocent, which is part of the reason he’s so incredibly dangerous. It’s easy to underestimate him.”
“If he’s speeding north on the interstate, how are you going to meet up with him?” Lu asked.
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