Walking in complete silence at such an early hour of the morning gave Chloe a decidedly creepy sensation. Once, just a few days ago, she’d enjoyed her quiet walks home from the Metro, in the early hours. Since Enoch’s attack, she definitely worried about things that went bump in the night. Something rustled in the bushes to their left, and she moved closer to Luca. He didn’t seem concerned, so she assumed it was a cat or something; she didn’t care, so long as it was a night creature that didn’t want to kill her and suck out all her blood. Or was that backward? Maybe they sucked out all the blood first and then killed.
With every step they took, she felt an increased anxiety, an instinctive warning to turn and run. Instead she took Luca’s hand. He wrapped his fingers around her hand, holding her close. The heat and strength of his grip offered comfort, and safety.
They were still well away from the mansion when he stopped, studying, listening. From here they couldn’t see anything of the house except a piece of the roof. Tall, old trees surrounded the house on all sides, shielding it, protecting it from prying eyes. That might have been one of the reasons this particular house had been selected.
Tugging on her hand, Luca led her to a wrought-iron gate leading to the house next door to the mansion. The gate was locked, but he waved his hand and the gate popped open. Just like that.
She’d have to tell him later that he’d make a great thief, if he wanted to change careers. That thought made her wonder about what sorts of jobs he’d held in the past however long he’d been alive. For all she knew he’d been a thief at one time or another. The possibilities were truly endless. When they were safely away from here, she was going to find out how old he was; no more running from it. Yes, she might feel completely inadequate after she found out, but knowing was better than guessing.
It was dark in the neighbor’s garden—or what had once been a garden. The land was untended, littered with dry, dead plants and tall grass. Did being so close to the vampires next door cause the vegetation to wither, or were the neighbors just too cheap to hire a gardener? This was a bad location for a garden, even Chloe knew that. The surrounding tall trees would block the sun. And why hadn’t the neighborhood association done something about this neglected lawn?
The house was dark; either everyone there was asleep, or else they’d bolted long ago, listening to their instincts to get far, far away.
Luca released her hand. She missed the touch but kept quiet. He moved silently toward the well-lit house on the other side of the tall wrought-iron fence. How close did he intend to get? What could the two of them do against an unknown number of vampires?
He moved into the shadows, and she lost sight of him. She stood there, abruptly terrified, then she felt him reach for her with his mind and she knew what to do. Closing her eyes, she focused on him and could feel him plainly, see him as well as if he were standing beside her. He wasn’t that far away, anyway. He was beside the fence; he’d stopped, too, and now that she was okay he closed his eyes, took a slow, even breath, and went entirely still.
Chloe hugged her arms, finding the warm night suddenly chilly. If she moved closer to Luca she’d make all kinds of noise; being around him made her feel clumsy, all because she was human. She also knew she needed to stop thinking, because her mental chatter might distract him.
She calmed herself, blanking her mind, leaving only a small thread of connection so he’d know she was all right. She couldn’t have said how she knew to do that, she just did it. As she did, her senses seemed to open up more, the night becoming full of noises she had never heard before. She felt something inside her go still and quiet, and in that quiet screamed the voice from her dreams:
“Run!”
The warning was too late. She knew it, felt them coming, and instead of running, which would have separated her from Luca, she leapt toward him, closing the distance between them faster than she’d thought possible. With the suddenness that still surprised her, even though it shouldn’t have, three vampires seemed to lunge out of the sky to surround her and Luca; the fence was behind them, the three vampires—two men and a very tall woman—in front of them. They had nowhere to go. At least, Chloe didn’t. Luca could fly, she thought. He could get out of here. He was a blood born, he was probably faster and stronger than these three. “Go,” she whispered to him in her mind. She didn’t know if the bond between them extended to actual words, so she wished him gone as hard as she could wish. He would fight for her, one against three, and he’d be killed—all for nothing, because then they’d kill her, too. Better that Luca lived, than that neither of them did.
He didn’t budge, and she felt a distinct blast of anger at her because she’d tried to make him go.
He didn’t seem surprised by the presence of the three vampires. He said calmly, “I’m here to see Sorin. He’s expecting me.”
The big female ignored Luca and nodded to a large, unattractive, massively fanged vampire who didn’t appear to Chloe to be of the same species as Luca. He looked more animal than man. “Kill the conduit,” the female said, and the ugly monster sprang, surprisingly agile for one who looked like nothing more than a lumbering beast.
Luca threw himself between the pouncing vampire and Chloe, hitting the attacker in midair, the impact sending them both flying away from Chloe. He had only a bare second of surprise before the other two acted, so he didn’t waste that second. Grabbing the ugly vampire by his head and twisting hard, he ripped the vampire’s head off and tossed it aside, all before they hit the ground. The two pieces of vampire quickly went to dust that was caught in the night breeze.
Luca rolled to his feet, turned, and saw the female change positions so Chloe was between them. The female had a Teutonic look, a strength in both features and body that few women had, vampire or not. The other male was young and apparently inexperienced, because he stood back with a slight expression of panic on his face. That expression said it all: this was more than he’d bargained for. But he moved to a position that triangulated Chloe between him and the female, then he looked at the other vampire for direction.
She ignored him, and took a different approach. She smiled, looked Chloe in the eye, and whispered, “Stand still for me, dear.” She reached out a hand.
Chloe backed away and glanced toward Luca with terror in her eyes. The young one, threatening at the moment or not, stood between Chloe and the only reasonable escape route, not that Luca expected her to take it. She wouldn’t leave him, any more than he’d have been able to leave her.
Then she looked back at the big female and said, “Fuck you.”
The vampire actually jerked in surprise, then recovered and leapt, lips pulled back, fangs prominent, hand drawn up as if to swipe down with great force. Her nails were long, curved, more claws than fingernails. She was all teeth and claws, as if she fully intended to take a big chunk, and a long drink, out of her target.
That flash of surprise cost her precious time. Luca collided with her in midair, too, taking her down. She was stronger than the male, and a smarter fighter. She did her best to give him a good fight; her nails ripped his cheek as she tried to get his head in her grip. In the night, her eyes glowed blood red. She was old, old and experienced, but she wasn’t as old as Luca, or as powerful. He broke her hold, flipped over her head so he landed behind her, and removed her head as he had the other’s. For a moment it was a messy, bloody, unpleasant sight, and then with a final scream from the detached head, she went to dust.
He whirled on the remaining vampire, and froze. While he’d been dealing with the female vampire, the young one had seized Chloe. He had Chloe in a common choke hold, his wide, terrified gaze fastened on Luca.
“You don’t understand,” the young rebel said, his voice high and quick. “She’s a conduit. They’re going to mess up everything if we don’t take care of them. You can get another human. There’re a lot of them, prettier than this one.”
“How did you know we were here?”
The young vampire was surprise
d into answering. “Jonas. He knew where you were.”
Jonas. Dammit! He wasn’t surprised that Jonas was there—not only had Ahron mentioned it during their rambling conversation, but when they’d arrived Luca had searched for, and found, Jonas’s essence in the mansion. It did surprise him that Jonas would have sicced the hounds on him; they’d worked together a lot in the past, and if they weren’t exactly friends, they’d at least been friendly. Jonas was the most talented remote tracker Luca knew. Changing hotels and cars wasn’t going to do them a damn bit of good if Jonas told Sorin their every move.
“Do you know Jonas?” the fledgling asked. “He’s like … a pretty good guy, really. Works nonstop. He said a conduit was very close, so, you know, we decided we’d try to stop her. That’s what we’re here for, right? I mean, if we could take out one that got so close to headquarters maybe Sorin would make us real hunters instead of grunts and guards.” His voice wavered. “It was a good idea.”
Too bad the good idea hadn’t worked out, Luca thought. He asked, “Why didn’t I sense you sooner?” The vampires had been on them before he’d known they were coming.
The fledgling swallowed, hesitated. Luca stared into those wide, frightened eyes, reaching deep. His power of influence didn’t work very well on vampires unless they were very new, or very weak. This one was both. It wasn’t glamouring, not technically, but the influence was much the same. He asked the question again. “Why didn’t I sense the three of you coming?”
“It was her.” The young vampire gestured with a nod toward the pile of dust that had once been the female attacker, but he never took his eyes off Luca; if he had, he’d have forgotten that he wasn’t alone with Chloe, that Luca was there at all. “She can shield almost anything. Well, she could shield almost anything, before you ripped off her head.” He shuddered. “We didn’t know you were here, but Loman said we should be careful so she projected her shielding thing, and—”
“Who else knows we’re here? Sorin? The other rebels?”
The kid shook his head. “No one. There wasn’t any time. The three of us were close when Jonas called, and he said we had to hurry. And like I said, we were hoping to make an impression.” He moved, and suddenly Luca could see both his hands; one held Chloe, the other held a long blade.
“A knife?” Luca asked with real incredulity. “You’re a vampire. You don’t need a weapon.” He kept the kid’s gaze locked with his, willing him to keep talking. He could feel Chloe’s terrified gaze on him but he had to lock her terror away, keep it from affecting him, or he wouldn’t be able to do what had to be done. He couldn’t let himself think he might lose her.
“The hunters aren’t supposed to leave too many clues when they kill the conduits, so, you know, humans won’t figure out what’s up before we’re ready,” the young vampire said nervously. “A knife just seemed like a good idea. Besides, I haven’t been immortal long enough to be as strong as most of our kind. I don’t have a gift yet,” he said, almost whining.
“You should know by now that you are not immortal in the strictest sense of the word. If I take your head you’ll be no more immortal than these other two.”
He could kill the fledgling. He had the kid under enough control now that he could take him down without Chloe being so much as scratched. Luca started to do it, then had a better idea. He pushed deeper into the kid’s mind. The vampire’s arms dropped to his sides, and Chloe stumbled to the ground. In half a second she was up, lunging for Luca, moving a bit faster, crisper, than had been possible before they’d bonded. He caught her soft body against his, clamped her to his side, but didn’t give her so much as a glance, not yet. He held the fledgling’s watery gaze.
“Are you going to kill me?” the kid asked.
Luca smiled and said, “No. Not tonight.”
Melody was worried. If Sorin found out she’d drained Jim Elliott—against orders—she was going to be in big trouble. The biggest, most final kind of trouble. She shivered a little as an unexpected rush of panic tickled her spine. She’d rarely experienced fear in her new life, but this moment was definitely fear-worthy. She might be Sorin’s child, and maybe he still liked her a little bit, but if he found out she’d jeopardized the rebels’ plans with her hunger she’d be dust before she had a chance to argue her case.
In her defense, she’d been hungry, and the human had been right there. How any vampire in his right mind could expect her to walk away from all that gorgeous blood, she didn’t know. She hadn’t been completely careless; when she’d realized what she’d done she’d tried to cover up the scene with a fire. After all, once a human was dead, healing the wounds left by her fangs was impossible. Dead was dead; nothing on a dead body was going to heal. Fire had worked before, when she’d gotten carried away, eating up all the evidence, so she hadn’t seen any reason why it wouldn’t work a second time. Maybe she should’ve stuck around to make sure everything had burned up: how was she supposed to know some nosy neighbors would call the fire department right away. That was a mistake she would not make again.
Using ordinary weapons to kill the conduits was a waste of her strength and hunger, but maybe from here on out she’d just do as she’d been told. She could use a knife on the younger Elliott, she imagined, or break his neck and toss him off a building. She needed to take care of him soon, so Sorin and the crazy bitch wouldn’t check too closely into the botched mess she’d made of the first Jim Elliott. She didn’t like being afraid.
She straightened her spine, thrust out her breasts, and reminded herself of who she was: a beauty queen who would never grow old and wrinkly, a woman who could hypnotize men without even bothering to call on her glamouring talents, a powerful vampire who could damn near rule the world. Her world, at least.
If she wanted to remain a part of that world, there could be no more mistakes.
Jimmy woke much earlier than he should’ve, considering how long it had taken him to fall asleep. Could he function on the day of his father’s funeral on two hours of sleep? Looked as if he’d have to, like it or not.
Hell, he hadn’t even made it to bed. He’d fallen asleep on the sectional sofa in the Lessers’ basement/playroom, just a few feet from an air hockey table. Kate was asleep upstairs, but he’d been so restless he’d stayed down here for a while, then accidentally fell asleep. Now he felt jumpy, his skin actually crawling with goose bumps that had nothing to do with the temperature.
He plopped down in a recliner that faced the flat-screen TV. If he didn’t think the noise would wake everyone upstairs, he’d play a video game or watch a DVD, maybe find a late-night—well, early-morning—movie on the TV. Instead he sat there in silence and pondered what Kate had suggested. Maybe it was true.
Vampires.
His common sense told him that wasn’t possible, but lately common sense had gone out the window, not that he could give much weight to the blog he’d found. Van Helsing, my ass. But there were things he couldn’t ignore, like all his dad’s blood being gone, the wounds on his neck, the warnings in Kate’s cards, and Jimmy’s dreams that something was very wrong … what if it was all true? What if a vampire had killed Jim Elliott?
If he could accept that—which he couldn’t quite do, even though he couldn’t dismiss the idea either—then the next question was: Why? Why here and now? If people died that way every day you’d think it would be common knowledge. They themselves only knew about it because the fire had been put out so quickly. Maybe some towns had top-notch CSIs and coroners who didn’t miss much, who could study a bit of residue and declare the cause of death with certainty, but in a small town those assets were as much fiction as vampires. Well, if vampires truly were fiction …
The television flickered on, then off again, startling Jimmy and making him jump. What the hell? He got up and searched the chair to see if he was sitting on the remote; if his butt could call people on his cell, it could probably turn on the television, too. But there wasn’t a remote in the chair; they were all were lined up on the coffe
e table. He sat back down, leaned back and tried to relax. He closed his eyes; he hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe he’d dozed off after all, and just dreamed the blink of light and sound.
Against his closed eyelids, light flickered. His eyes popped open. The television clicked on, then off. Then it came on again. The channel switched to an informercial where a man was hawking kitchen appliances. “Every home needs one of these …” The television went crazy again, flipping through channels, ending on an old movie. “Tonight, it all happens tonight whether you like it or not. Trust me …” Again, with the channel switching, this time ending very briefly on a war movie. “… surrender …”
Holy shit! What the fuck was happening? Jimmy’s hair stood on end and he looked wildly around, but there was no one else there, just him and this television set, which was apparently possessed.
The television channel went back to the infomercial, and the same words repeated. “Every home needs one of these …” On to the old movie: “Tonight, it all happens tonight …” then to the war movie. Over and over, as if the television were repeating a code.
A code. He felt an electric wash of energy all over his body. Crap, was it possible? He leaned forward again, forgetting about the impossibility of what was happening, concentrating on the words. Was it a message? From his father? The spirit guide Kate said he had around him all the time? Someone—something—else?
“I need you …” “… acceptance …” “It’s time …” “Now.” “… now …” “… now.”
He found himself on his feet. There was an unnatural glow off to the side, well away from the flickering television. And he knew, with a certainty he couldn’t explain, that this was it. He could fight whoever or whatever was speaking to him through reruns, infomercials, and old movies, or he could accept. If it hadn’t been for Kate, he had no idea what he’d have done, but knowing her gave him the courage to face that glow.
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