by Noelle Ryan
“It’s him. He’s there, in his room,” I whispered.
“Can you tell how many others are in the house with him?” Damian whispered back.
I concentrated, glaring at the house, willing it to reveal its secrets to me, but nothing happened. I sighed, looking away. I had to be more useful, damnit. This conflict was only happening because of me, and I would not just sit helplessly by hoping for extra-sensory information while other people fought my battles. I rolled my neck and shut my eyes, pressing the heels of my hands against the closed lids. And then, the second I relaxed just that little bit, I felt them: six icy drops poised between my shoulder blades, perfectly still, barely there. The slight spider-step feeling still hadn’t gone away, and though I wasn’t sure why Cesar felt different than the others, I was relieved to at least know how many there were now.
“Seven, including Cesar. I’m not sure where the others are though,” I replied.
Damian reached out to touch my hand, and I turned to smile at him. But when my eyes met his a wave of pain crashed over me, and I crumpled to the soft grass, curling into a ball.
Almost instantly, Tom was at my side, crouching over me. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t…go,” I panted, waiting for the pain to ease. Finally it unclenched just enough to allow me enough air to speak. “One of Cesar’s men tried the house, escaped the traps. He’s telling Cesar now that I wasn’t there. Cesar,” I grimaced. We were totally screwed. “He’s figured out that we know Amelia was a plant, and that you won’t be waiting until morning to attack.” The pain was almost gone, but in its place the spidery feeling and cold spots were getting stronger, moving around in agitated bursts across my back. “Everyone's running around now. He’s putting his people on high alert to expect our attack tonight.”
As I finished, I heard the soft swoosh of a door opening and the click of it latching closed. I turned my head towards the house and saw a new shadow moving around the back, pausing every few steps to scan the patio, pool, and landscaping. The lights inside the house went off, leaving everything dark.
“Shit,” Luis cursed softly.
“With them on alert this is simply too risky. We’ve lost the element of surprise, and they’ve two more than us, with who knows how many more on the way,” Sam said, sounding both respectful and, much to my surprise, disappointed. I would have guessed he’d be delighted at any excuse to bail.
“I think he might be right, Damian,” Valerie said softly. “We can file a legal complaint with Temora for their attack on our property and family. This is too risky now.”
Damian’s face was impassive, seeming to gaze almost casually at Cesar’s house, as if he were inspecting a piece of art he was debating whether or not to buy rather than considering a battle. I watched him, wanting to wrap some of that calm assurance around me somehow, to stop the faint tremors running through me.
Alyson, a voice crooned in my mind, and my stomach lurched. I can feel you out there. Come to me. You can stop all this ridiculous fighting. You belong to me, not that ridiculous play soldier. Come.
“Help me,” I whispered, feeling my body roll over and begin to crawl against my will.
“Aly? What are you doing?” Tom whispered.
I was only a few feet from breaking into the clearing, and I dragged against my muscles with all my will. Why were they just staring at me?
“Stop me. Please!” I whimpered, disgusted and frightened by my lack of control.
My hand slid forward only a few more inches before a sturdy arm wrapped around my waist and dragged me back, holding me onto a lap. I looked up to see Sam’s face grinning at me. “Well, well, you just get more interesting by the moment, don’t you sweets. Why were you crawling away if you wanted us to stop you?”
I heard a sharp snap and I looked over to see Tom glaring furiously at Sam, jaw clenched. Valerie and Luis had moved a few steps away and were whispering softly. Damian had turned his look of abstract curiosity from Cesar’s house to me, and I felt suddenly like an especially rare butterfly pinned under glass.
“Cesar, he…” I swallowed, determined to get a grip on my fear before I embarrassed myself further. It helped that my limbs were no longer urging me against my will, though I still didn't feel completely in control. I gestured to Sam to let me go, and he sat me up cautiously, moving to block the shortest path to the clearing. Smart. His caution, somehow, helped me relax; I knew he would be keeping an eye on me, wouldn’t let me inadvertently betray our position.
“He knows I’m here. He was…in my head, somehow, ordering me to him. I tried to stop, but my arms and legs kept moving.” I took a deep breath, forcing the tears back, willing myself to be angry instead of afraid. “That sonovabitch was in my head,” I growled.
The anger appeared to be working wonders. I felt better, more in control of myself, than I had in months. I stood, fury pouring through me like liquid fire, and I smiled when I felt his mind reach out for me again and then recoil in pain.
I looked over at Damian, Tom, and Sam, seeing them exchanging looks in a silent conversation. After a few seconds Sam nodded, then walked to join Valerie and Luis.
“Then we go in tonight,” Damian said.
“What?” I said, surprise tamping my anger down to a slow simmer.
Tom turned to me, a sad look on his face. “Aly, we have to now. The fact that he could do that—it gives validity to his claim that you belong to his family more than ours. If he can show that you hear and respond to him, you’re his.”
“What?” I repeated. Then, feeling Cesar’s mind probing again at that shot of fear, I reminded myself to stay angry. “He hasn’t touched my blood. How can he do that?”
“His servant did, and his servant died,” Damian said. “Everything of the servant’s returned to Cesar upon his death, including his hold over you. It’s not as strong as if he’d taken your blood himself—and, fortunately, he acquires none of your powers this way—but it is apparently still there. It’s interesting, really; I’ve only ever heard of this once or twice before because it doesn't always happen this way. There aren't many telepathic vampire lines; Cesar must have drained someone with telepathic abilities at some point. I would have heard about it if one of our vampire telepaths had chosen to share their gift with him.”
Wonderful, I thought. I’m standing here trying to force-feed myself anger while mister cool and calm over there is musing over this like it’s a new legal theory with fascinating implications. He’s worse than my department chair.
While Damian continued to stare abstractedly at Cesar’s house, Tom stepped closer to me and slipped his hand in to mine. “Maybe it would be better if you waited back at the car so, you know, you don’t have to worry about Cesar slipping into your head again?”
“You mean so you all don’t have to worry about me suddenly turning on you?” I whispered back, hating the sharpness in my voice but knowing I couldn’t afford to let my anger drop. “He won’t manage it again, as long as I stay angry. And believe me, I’m plenty angry right now.”
I shook off his hand and marched over to Sam. “If we’re doing this, I’m going in with a weapon. Surely you have something that’s relatively idiot proof?”
He gave me a patronizing look. “There’s no such thing. You’re more likely to hurt yourself and give us another mess to clean up, or hurt one of us and screw up this impossible ratio even further.”
“Wait,” Luis said, “What about your pepper spray that’s laced with garlic extract?”
Valerie’s eyebrows lifted. “Not a bad idea, actually.”
Sam begrudgingly dug through his pockets and pulled out a small leather-sheathed tube. It looked just like the one we’d been given in my self-defense class. This, at least, I knew how to use. They’d made us practice hitting targets with our spray bottles from every possible angle, standing, laying down, or running, before the class was over.
“Don’t use it unless you absolutely have to—the smell alone might cause you t
o drop over heaving, and even though they’ll be hurting more from skin contact they might still be able to grab you,” Sam said. The memory of my stomach churning in my kitchen after smelling my garlic powder surged back; I was willing to bet it would be enough to keep me from being too trigger happy.
I turned to see Damian walking towards us. Tom, curiously, was not with him—he stood a few feet away with his back to us and his head down, arms hanging at his sides, fists clenched.
“Alyson, we need to change our plans somewhat,”Damian said. “You’ll no longer be entering the house with Valerie and me.”
“Oh no, no way am I staying out of this,” I replied. “Even an academic like me knows that seven against five, on their home turf, with no element of surprise is damn near impossible odds. You need me,” I said, squaring my shoulders. They’d have to forcibly restrain me to keep me out of Cesar’s house at this point. That bastard was going down.
“You’re right, they are impossible odds, even with you,” Damian said softly. “We need you to lure some of them away from the house if we’re to have any chance of success.”
I'd been so prepared to fight him that it took a moment for the new plan to sink in.
“You want to use me as bait,” I said finally, shocked.
“Let your guard down enough to let Cesar think he has control over you,” Damian said. “Let him draw you out into the clearing, and then fight it off and run. He’ll undoubtedly send several of his men after you, especially if you can convincingly fill your mind with thoughts of being alone and abandoned before you fight his hold off.”
“You’re saying I actually have to let him inside my head again?” My arms began shaking in recollection of that loss of control. I felt like I was going to throw up.
“We need him to think we left you once we saw his influence on you, Aly.” Valerie said. “Once you’ve drawn some away, we’ll take down the ones that are left and then catch up with you. Since Cesar wants you so badly, his servants will be aiming merely to incapacitate, not kill, so you should be fine.”
Thinking of the first servant he’d sent after me, I had my doubts. What if these guys ended up so injured they lost their control too? My mind raced, trying to come up with alternate plans, but none presented themselves. I knew they were right; even with Cesar having fairly young vamps it would still be seven defending familiar territory against five who only had the meager foreknowledge I’d been able to give them. No-one else could lure some of them away but me. And, after seeing the looks on everyone's faces when Cesar had first exerted his control over me, I had the feeling it wouldn’t be too hard to manufacture some pretty realistic fears of abandonment.
“Alright,” I whispered. “I’ll do it.”
“No!” Tom jerked me back from the rest of them abruptly. “Don’t be stupid, Aly; we can come back tomorrow with more people. He won’t have a chance to file a petition that quickly, and you won’t have to endanger yourself like this.”
“I’m not being stupid, Tom.” I hissed, yanking my arm out of his grip and welcoming my returning anger. “This is the best option we have, and you know it as well as I do. Cesar’s vamps won’t be trying to kill me. I’ll be fine.” I hoped.
I was interrupted by the press of metal against my palm, and I turned to see Damian handing me his keys. “Head for a populated area; it will force them to be more cautious. I have a chip in my car that will allow us to track you via GPS. We’ll find you.”
That, of course, assumed they didn’t snag me in the woods and drag me back before Damian and the others had finished in the house, but since I didn’t have a better plan I decided to keep that thought to myself.
“Alright, we’re going to spread out now so they don’t see us while they’re following you,” Valerie said, and Luis and Sam faded into the tress that flanked the right side of the house.
"Wait," I said, "couldn't you just knock them out as soon as they enter the woods after me?"
”I’m sorry, but we can’t. It would alert Cesar, and we need him to genuinely believe we're gone.” Though she was ostensibly responding to me, she was staring at Tom as she said this. A second later, he had faded into the trees, following Sam and Luis.
Once he was gone, Valerie gave me one last indecipherable look before joining Damian, and they ghosted off. After a few moments I couldn’t see any of them, couldn’t even hear a faint shush of grass or snapping of twigs to mark where they were now. I slid the keys into my right pocket and the spray into my left, not wanting to risk dropping them as I ran. And then I crouched down and curled up, inviting my fear back despite every instinct that screamed at me not to.
Ten
Alyson, mi preciosa, did your new friends leave you so soon? I could have told you they would be too weak to stand by you.
It hadn’t taken long for the fear to come coursing back, or much coaxing to tinge it with the bitter flavor of abandonment. I’d thought back a few years to the weeks after my mother’s cancer had dragged her into death, weeks when my father had been simply a zombie in a bathrobe, hardly speaking. Though I couldn’t claim to have been surprised, it had bit sharply into my grief when he'd died of uncertain causes a month later. I’d been legally an adult, two years out of college and working full time, but I’d felt like a five year old who has just realized her parents are nowhere in sight and the hand she was clutching for in the crowd actually belongs to a stranger. I only had to dwell on those old feelings for seconds before they came rushing back in, attaching themselves easily to the faces that had disappeared into the trees. Same play, new players; I knew my part.
Come to me now. I could never abandon you, mi dulce.
A small, hidden part of me thought Boy he sure likes to lay it on thicker than a soap-opera star, and I silenced it before Cesar could notice. I didn’t fight the urge to move this time, but my body still stood slowly, dragging me into the clearing one wooden step at a time. Just because I wasn’t going to fight him yet didn’t mean I’d make it easy, and it was obvious he was struggling with piloting a completely unresponsive body. It seemed like hours passed before I was clear of the trees, and I noticed two figures moving from the patio towards me. I was torn between wishing Cesar would send more, so as to make things easier on the others, and my fear that even just these two would be more than I could handle.
I gathered up the small embers of anger I’d left smoldering in the corners and focused on them, pouring my remembered rage over them like gasoline. It took only seconds for them to ignite. I shrieked, letting the anger burn out what remained of my fear, and it took me in a heady rush that left me wondering why I’d always tried so hard to avoid getting angry before today.
“You can’t have me either!” I yelled. “No one can!” I added, hoping this melodramatic touch would appeal to his obvious penchant for the stuff.
I felt a faint lick of his rage grabbing at me before mine burned through it, shoving him out. I heard a shriek more painful sounding than my own come from the house, and the two vamps that had been slowly approaching me turned back to assess the cause.
“Grab her!” Cesar yelled, and I took off, glancing back just once to see how many were coming after me. Two more shadows detached themselves from the house and headed my way. Four total—I’d just have to cross my fingers that was enough to help without getting me killed in the process.
Knowing I couldn’t afford any more second glances, I focused on the woods before me, fingers crossed that some kind of vampiric instinct would take over and guide me back the way we’d come. As I entered the trees I caught two scents of Tom—a stronger one to my right, and a fainter one, back and to my left. Praying the fainter one marked the way back to the cars, I picked up speed and bolted in that direction.
Panic-laced anger pushed me far faster going out than fear and exhilaration had coming in. The trees actually seemed to move by me quickly this time, and I wove between them, trying to ignore the branches lashing against my face and arms. I could still feel Cesar’s consciou
sness picking around the edges of my anger, looking for a weak spot to slip past. I focused on what a scum-sucking jerk he was, sending vampires to hunt me, tossing away his people like pawns, indirectly forcing me to become someone who talked with ghosts, drank blood, and could never enjoy the sun again. The anger felt good, and feeding it became easy, until it pumped through me better than my previous runner’s high. I actually spared a breath for a laugh when I felt it shove Cesar straight off the edges; I could hear his curses echoing in my brain even after he was gone.
It only took a few minutes before I could smell the faint hint of gasoline and realized I was almost to the cars. Then I heard the snapping of branches close behind me, and the secondary realization that Cesar's vamps could grab me while I stopped to unlock, get in, and start Damian’s Mercedes caused me to glance back, and miss the root that rolled up beneath my feet.
I went down, pain jabbing my ankle, inertia somersaulting me four or five times until I came to a stop. Ohshitohshitoh—someone dove at me, tumbling me over twice more as I dug in my pocket for the pepper spray. I didn’t care that spraying it in such close proximity would likely make me start heaving; I had to get him off of me if I wanted any chance of making it to the car. When we stopped rolling I discovered I was on my side and with my attacker behind me, arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders and upper torso. It left me just enough free play to aim my hand back and hit the top of the can. I held as still as possible, reminding myself I didn't need to breathe. I heard him suck in air as the cold liquid hit his face and then start gagging as his senses realized what it was. His arms loosened and I scrambled forward, spinning around to see if any of the others had caught up with us yet, spray at the ready.