Illumination (The Penton Vampire Legacy Book 5)

by Susannah Sandlin

  “Would it be possible to get a quick feed first?” The more Fen Patrick talked, the faster his words tumbled out. “It’s been a while, and all of the clean humans I’ve encountered are already bonded to a vampire.”

  “I’ll hear what you have to say. If I think it’s worthwhile, you’ll be rewarded. If I don’t, you’ll die.” Frank’s threat was delivered in a conversational tone.

  “Of course, Mr. Greisser.”

  Shay would have pitied Fen Patrick in any other circumstances. Even now, a wave of empathy washed through her. He was going to die tonight, even if he hadn’t realized it yet. Desperation clung to him like a shroud.

  “Aidan Murphy is recruiting for Penton again in Atlanta.”

  “Please don’t insult my intelligence.” Frank returned to his seat on the sofa and motioned Simon and Fen Patrick to sit as well. “Who do you think ordered the explosive to be planted at the Atlanta clinic? I believe one of your acquaintances was there, Simon, and it was her mistake that forced our hand.”

  “Yes, the leader of Atlanta’s largest scathe and her familiar had a meeting to try and earn permission to move to Penton, to get another of our people into their ranks.” Simon ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Murphy was there himself, although Marianne said he appeared to be weak. He was with a human who seemed to be some sort of psychic. The guy picked up on the ruse right away, which necessitated using the explosive.”

  Fen Patrick’s face brightened. “It’s true. There is a psychic human who lives in Penton now. He is one of Aidan Murphy’s lieutenants, or soon will be. His name is Nikolas Dimitrou and he is what you call a psychometric.”

  A chill stole across Shay’s shoulders. How many people in the world could be named Nikolas Dimitrou? The name conjured up images of her junior year at Newman High School here in New Orleans. She’d been living with her grandmother, and Nik Dimitrou had been her first love, or at least what a 15-year-old girl with limited access to boys had considered love. Her first kiss. He’d been a Greek god posing as a moody high school boy, with black curls, melted-chocolate eyes, and the arrogance of one who’d lived a privileged life. Until he dumped her without warning and disappeared.

  She added it to her list of names, anyway. The world wasn’t that small. Frank Greisser. Simon. Jonathan. Eric. Fen Patrick. Aidan Murphy. Nikolas Dimitrou. All her skill in rote learning would come in handy. As soon as she could do so safely, she’d write them down.

  Shay jerked her attention back to the conversation; she could ponder Nik Dimitrou later.

  Frank leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “What can you tell us about this man Dimitrou and his abilities?”

  “He can touch a person or thing and see its history. Draws pictures of whatever he sees. He’s the reason I ended up having to leave Penton.” Fen Patrick relaxed, his shoulders slumping against the chair back. “Murphy’s been using him to vet the humans coming into the rebellion while Murphy himself vets the vampires—as much as he can.”

  There was more talk of which Shay understood little, mostly about this Murphy guy and his mate and how he was getting weak and probably going to die on his own without anyone having to kill him. Something about a slayer.

  “So, Mr. Patrick.” Frank turned to the newcomer again. “Is there anything else you can offer us about Penton, about Murphy or the Slayer? Or about this Dimitrou?”

  She had begun to tune them out when Fen Patrick said, “Dimitrou is from New Orleans, so he might have ties here you could use. He hasn’t been in Penton that long; you might be able to recruit him.”

  Oh my God. It was Nik. Shay’s breath caught as Frank whipped his head around to look straight at her. “Your heartrate increased when you heard the psychic was from New Orleans. I could feel the blood rush to the surface of your skin. Who is he to you?”

  Nobody. God, nobody at all. “I…I just remembered the last name is all. There’s a shipping company owned by a family with that name. They’re Greek, I think.”

  All anyone had to do was look at the Newman yearbooks online and see pictures of her and Nik together, but she wasn’t going to be a pawn in whatever they might want to do to him, even if he had treated her like dirt.

  Frank got up and walked to the door of her cage. “Simon, open it.”

  Shay backed as far into the corner as she could, practically straddling the toilet. Frank Greisser was on her before she realized he’d taken a step, grasping her head in his hands. “Look at me.”

  She looked at his nose, his lips, his ear.

  “Look in my eyes, or you and your baby will die tonight. Do you understand how insignificant you are?”

  Reluctantly, she raised her eyes, inwardly apologizing to Nik.

  Calm, sweet calm. It washed through her like a balm even though on some deep level a tiny voice screamed at her to look away. “Do you know this Nikolas Dimitrou?”

  “It was a long time ago. I haven’t seen him since I was fifteen.” I haven’t seen him since he walked away without a word and broke my heart.

  “And his family?”

  Shay tried to remember, her gaze still locked helplessly onto his. “They were rich. His father was Greek and had a shipping company. He has a sister.” As much as it hurt to lose him at the time, now Shay was glad she knew nothing of Nik’s life over the last sixteen years.

  “I can tell you where the family lives.” Fen Patrick oozed a desperate desire to please.

  “No need,” Simon snapped. Jon still cowered near the exit, and he turned to his employee. “Get out of here. I’ll decide later if I’m going to kill you.”

  “Yes sir.” Jon closed his eyes, and Shay could swear he was saying a prayer of thanks. She doubted Simon would kill him; he was both a food source and, apparently, fertile.

  “Now, Mr. Patrick, we must come up with a suitable reward for your valuable information.” Frank looked away from Shay and returned to the door of her cage. Her sense of well-being disappeared, her heart jack-rabbiting in her chest again.

  Would they make Fen Patrick feed from her, knowing it would kill him? Surely not. She might be insignificant, but they wanted her baby. Shay sat on her bed, her gaze roving around her cage, looking for something to use in a fight. She wouldn’t expose her clippers, even if she had to let them use her blood as a murder weapon.

  “Perhaps you can have a quick feed from our guest here, Nik Dimitrou’s old friend. Come over, since the cage is unlocked.” Greisser stepped outside the cage door and motioned for Fen to walk inside, and didn’t have to offer twice. Fen’s green eyes had an odd, silvery glow to them, and his focus pinned her like a butterfly on a corkboard. She dropped her gaze to avoid any hypnosis.

  She needn’t have bothered. At the sound of a gurgle, she looked up again and saw that Frank Greisser had grasped Fen Patrick’s neck from behind just before he breached the door.

  “On second thought, I don’t want to risk our first feeder child,” he said softly. Behind him, Simon stood frozen in place like a pasty, underweight vampire statue. “Perhaps this payment will work instead.”

  With a quick jerk to the right and a sickening crunch of bone and cartilage, he broke Fen Patrick’s neck, then followed it with a few slashing strokes from a big silver blade until the man’s head rolled away, trailing a stream of blood.

  Shay ran to the toilet in the corner of her cage and threw up her dinner, retching until there was nothing more to offer the porcelain god.

  If she had any doubt about the brutality of the monsters under whose control she had fallen, that doubt had disappeared.

  Chapter 6 * Nik

  For Nik, each night had become a clone of the night before: shouts, gunfire, explosions; the scent of spent powder and smoke; blood. Always blood, sweet and rich and intoxicating. Funny how the odor of it once made him sick, but now he liked it.

  A shot sounded in the distance—different this time. Closer, maybe. He analyzed the echo: a rifle of some kind, maybe an M4 like the one he carried now in the sandbox, in Afgh
anistan. It had that sound. Shortened barrel. Not like the old AR15s. Did the Afghan fighters have the same weapons?

  He couldn’t remember where he was—Kabul, maybe, or deep in the Nangarhar Province. He must’ve been entrenched for a while, though, because his legs were stiff and sore as if they’d been stuck in one position too long, and the thirst was killing him. He couldn’t seem to force open his eyes.

  He tried to reach for the lightweight canteen he wore strapped on his gear but couldn’t move his hand. Either hand. He fought down panic. Had he been injured? Captured?

  “Are you awake, Niko?” A light pressure rubbed his shoulder. “Nik, open your eyes.”

  He stilled, his mind racing through a confusion of images. That had been Robin Ashton’s voice. But Robin wasn’t in Afghanistan. Robin was…

  Oh, hell.

  “I survived?” His voice came out in a whisper. Had he been turned? He couldn’t remember anything except that moose of a Scottish vampire crushing his chest while he drank him dry. His heartbeat had grown thready, his breath shallow. Then he’d burned as if his body had been doused in gasoline and been treated to a lighted match. Finally, he’d been filled with a sweet warmth that only intensified the thirst.

  He was so damned thirsty.

  “Niko? You with me? Time to wake up.”

  The ground shifted beneath Nik, dipping on one side. No, not the ground. Not the sandbox. Penton. Robin. The bedroom in one of the community houses.

  “I can’t open my eyes. I can’t move my hands.” His eyes were crusted shut. Nik sort of remembered begging and weeping, but shoved that flash of memory aside. There would be plenty of time for humiliation later.

  “Wait a sec.” The bed jostled again, Nik heard the sound of water running, and then a cool, wet cloth stroked his face. Gentle fingers pried his left eye open, followed by his right. Both felt as if they’d been Velcro’d shut and should make that ripping noise when his lids parted.

  His focus zeroed in on his best friend’s face. Beautiful, fierce little Robin, who let very few people see through her tough eagle-shifter exterior to the caring woman Nick saw now. She smiled at him, her gold-flecked eyes crinkling at the edges. “There you are. Mirren said you’d wake up soon, but I was afraid.” She leaned forward and hissed, “Don’t you fucking ever scare me like that again,” then sat back. “Your eyes turn gold like Will Ludlam’s when you’re hungry—must be a brown-eyed vampire thing, only your gold’s a little darker. Can I see your fangs?”

  Nik frowned and tried to talk, failed, finally croaked, “Robin…”

  She laughed. “There’s my Niko. Glad I can still annoy the hell out of you.”

  Nik tried to smile, but something sliced into his lip and sent a trail of warm liquid streaming down his chin. He slid his tongue along the bottom of his upper teeth and snagged it on his left canine. It was a damned fang, and now his tongue was bleeding.

  “Untie me.”

  “No can do. I can get Mirren back in here if you think you’re ready to drink like a real vampire instead of having blood dribbled down your throat like a baby.”

  “Robin….” Nick clenched his teeth, nicking his lip again. He pulled at the ties securing his arms to the bed. “Untie me.”

  The room was lit only by a single lamp in the corner, but the door to the hallway opened and filled with a dark hulk that could only be Mirren Kincaid. “Leave us, Ashton.”

  Robin turned to look at the doorway. “Fuck off, Mirren. You said I could feed him when he woke up. He woke up.”

  “Not now. We’ve got a situation…”

  The staccato pops of gunfire sounded again, closer this time. “Cage needs you on the north perimeter, near the old clinic. Our people are holding them, but I need you to do a flyover and see how many there are and where they’re coming from. I don’t want them near the clinic.”

  “How’d they get so close? Who’s on lookout tonight?”

  Mirren gave her a glare that would send most men, human and vampire, to their knees. It never worked with Robin. Nik was glad to know some things hadn’t changed. Only him.

  “Never mind that,” Mirren growled. “Get the hell out of here.”

  Robin leaned over and pecked Nik on the cheek. “You’re gonna be fine,” she whispered. She gave Mirren a punch to the gut on her way out the door.

  Mirren didn’t react, which raised Nik’s trouble radar. “Untie me. I can help.”

  With an arched eyebrow, the big man put that notion to rest. “First, feed.” He leaned into the hallway and yelled, “Hippie!”

  Nik’s old Ranger buddy, Gadget, had obviously been on standby and had earned his own Mirren nickname. He appeared within seconds, complete with shaggy hair and wire-rimmed glasses. “He’s ready?” Then he looked at Nik and grinned. “You’re awake.”

  “And probably thirsty as hell. Try the fangs this time, Zorba. You know how it works.”

  Yeah, Nik knew. He’d been a feeder for half the vamps in Penton at one time or another the past few months. Speaking of which. “What day is it? How long have I been down?”

  “A little less than four weeks. It’s almost Christmas.” Gadget sat on the bed next to Nik while Mirren untied his wrists and ankles and, finally, the rope around his waist. “Didn’t think you were gonna make it.”

  Almost a month of his life just…gone. Although time had suddenly become relative, hadn’t it? The thirst, however, was not relative. It was overwhelming.

  He grabbed Gadget’s arm and gasped at the images assaulting him—images of himself, Will’s blood dripping into his open mouth, then Gadget’s. Then earlier times, of their years with the Rangers, on recon duty, in random roadside skirmishes.

  “You still have the sight?” Gadget’s voice broke through the images.

  Nik opened his eyes. “Yeah, stronger than ever.”

  Gadget looked down to where Nik still grasped his arm. “But you never let go of me when you answered my question. You’re still touching me, so are you still seeing things?”

  Nik shook his head, pulled Gadget’s arm to his mouth, and did as he’d recalled, running his tongue along the vein before biting. “Sorry, man” was all he could get out before the urge to drink grew too great to resist, and he slid those nasty fangs into Gadget’s arm. His friend tensed briefly, then relaxed and closed his eyes.

  Nik knew how good it felt to be fed from, but, God, it was nothing compared to the pleasure of the feed. He’d had no idea. With each draw, his strength increased. The burning in his veins gave way to sweet calm. He no longer felt—now he would admit it—as if he might turn into a freak hybrid animal.

  “Enough.” Mirren’s deep voice penetrated the mental pillow into which Nik’s consciousness had sunk. Reluctantly, he withdrew his fangs from Gadget’s arm. “Don’t forget to heal the punctures.”

  “Sorry.” Nik’s speech was garbled and drunk, but he managed to lick across the puncture wounds and release his friend’s arm.

  Another round of gunshots sounded, this time farther away—much farther. Mirren took a call on his mobile phone, grunted a couple of times, and stuck the phone in the pocket of his black combat pants. Not a man of many words, Mirren Kincaid. Still, Nik was grateful to him. “Looks like the sight is still with me, so I can continue to help you guys vet new humans for Penton.”

  Maybe more effectively than before. The images of Gadget had been stronger, yet they’d also disappeared when he stopped focusing on them. Before, only distance and alcohol would dull them. He’d had no control.

  “What’s all the gunfire about?” Nik’s energy levels and alertness were on a rapid uphill climb.

  “The Tribunal’s newest fucked-up tactic. Consistent attacks every night to keep our patrols busy. No casualties yet on our part. I think they’re testing our firepower. Our manpower.”

  Nik could be a part of that manpower—and womanpower, as Robin would remind him. “Give me a gun and I can help.” He had no idea where his own weapons were.

  “Eventually
, but we have other things we need to talk about first. Hannah’s been waiting for days to—” Before Mirren could finish his sentence, the child appeared in the doorway, slipping inside when Gadget left.

  “Hannah.” Nik smiled at her without slicing his lips open and, after a couple of tries, managed to sit up. For a guy who’d died, been reborn as another species, and been tied down flat on his back for almost four weeks, he felt strong. Really strong. The Rangers always boasted to the vamps about their rigorous training. No wonder the vampires had looked at them as if indulging precocious children.

  And, of course, the vamps beat the shit out of said humans every once in a while to remind them who was strongest, and it wasn’t the Rangers. What Nik had known in theory, he now felt in his body. He could snap a man in half if he wanted to.

  Hannah stood frozen just inside the door, her eyes closed but moving in jerks beneath her lids. Mirren closed the door to the hallway and assumed his favorite stance, arms folded across his massive chest, leaning against the wall. The big guy was tense, and Nik didn’t think it was just because he was uncomfortable with Hannah’s visions.

  “Shay is in trouble,” Hannah whispered. She opened her eyes and caught Nik’s gaze. Her black eyes shone with tears. “They have her. Shay is in trouble, and also others I cannot see yet. Babies.”

  “She’s been saying the same thing all week; we’ve barely been able to get her to feed.” Mirren’s voice rumbled from behind the girl. “What does it mean? Who is Shay?”

  Nik felt his pulse speed, but the sensation in his chest was foreign. Even fueled by a rush of adrenaline, his heartbeat was slower, sluggish, as if trying to beat within a deep pool of mud.

  He thought hard, but came up with only one answer. “The only Shay I know is a girl from New Orleans that I haven’t seen in fifteen or sixteen years. Is that who you mean, Hannah? Who has her? Has someone hurt her?” And why would Hannah be getting visions about Shay Underwood?

  The tears spilled down Hannah’s cheeks. “I don’t know who has her. People like us, in New Orleans. Vampires. But the babies are going to be hurt. Nik, you have to save Shay. She will be very important to all of us, and you will love her.”