“No, but you’re in my house.”
Evan bit her tongue. It would do William no good if she got in a fight with Danika and ended locked up in a room in the barracks.
Danika turned and strode across the hall to where a tall, white-haired Vampire waited.
Evan swallowed and headed into the kitchen. She pulled out two plates and opened the fridge. Inside she grabbed food without thinking. She tried to keep calm as she headed out to the backyard toward the barracks. Through the front window, she spotted Tommy sitting on the couch near the television, surrounded by a small group of humans.
She pulled open the door and walked in. Everyone turned to stare at her. Tommy hopped from his spot and took one of the plates.
“Hey, sis. How’s William?”
She glanced at the slaves listening from the couch. “Better.”
He nodded and turned to the group. “I’m sure you all remember my sister, Evan.”
Some of the group nodded or gave a weak wave. Evan said nothing in reply.
“How’s Sue?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Doc went up and tended to her and the others but it wasn’t good. I think she was in shock when I pulled her out of there. She just kept sayin’ she didn’t understand.”
Evan nodded. “She and William used to be…close. I have an old room upstairs. You can have it if you want. Or I can try to see if I can find you something in the house…”
“Nah, I’m good. I’ll hang out here. I want to make sure Sue’s gonna be okay.” A shy grin spread over his face and Evan shook her head.
Leave it to Tommy to fall for a damsel in distress.
“I’ll come back and check on you. If you need me, you know where I’ll be.”
He pulled her into a one-armed hug. “You did the right thing, sis. No matter what happens, you did the right thing.”
“Do you think Pop will come looking for us?”
“I don’t know. Part of me hopes so, but part of me prays he doesn’t.”
She knew that feeling all too well.
Tommy released her, and she backed out the door and headed for the main house and into the front hall. The entourage had convened in the atrium and she was just sneaking back up the stairs when Mason ducked into the foyer. For a moment, they stared at each other, and then he crossed to her.
“How is he?” Mason asked.
“Better.” Somehow knowing what Mason was made her want to run.
Mason nodded and looked at the upstairs landing. “He saved my life once.”
“Yes. He told me.”
“I’ll do the same for him if I can.”
She wasn’t sure what Mason could do for William. She wasn’t sure what any of them could do for him.
“Is it true Selene and Neeman left?” she asked. “They didn’t seem the type to run from a fight.”
Mason’s amber eyes met hers. “After Neeman was injured, my sister freaked out. She’d do anything not to lose him.”
“But where would they go? If the demons take over, no one will be safe.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” His eyes held such solid conviction that she believed him.
“You’d go back with your father. To save us all.”
He didn’t need to answer. “You turned your back on your family to save William. Would you go back to them if it would save him too?”
“In a heartbeat.”
“Then you understand my position. If leaving Danika is the only way to save her, I’ll do it.” He glanced at the atrium. “I should get back. I only came out to grab something for Sherman. If you’ll excuse me.” He jogged around her and took the steps three at a time, and then bounded down the hall.
Would she go back to Pop and Peter if it would save William? Be subjected to their brainwashing and torture of people… She already knew the answer. She’d do whatever it took to make William well again. Even that.
* * * *
William coughed and a spatter of blood splashed on his palm. The bloodlust was ever-present, but the fullness in his stomach quenched it enough to see and think straight. His time with Evan was more than he could ever hope for. He wished there was more he could do for her, but even with the blood coursing through him, he felt weak as a babe.
The door opened and Evan entered with a plate of food.
“Hey,” she said. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Nope.”
She shook her head, moved to the other side of the bed, and sat. “You want to watch some television?”
“I’d rather talk.”
“Okay.” She picked a piece of beef off the plate and bit into it.
“What’s going on downstairs?”
“I don’t know. There’s a ton of Vampires down there in some kind of meeting.”
“Members of the house?”
“More. Maybe a hundred or more. Most I’ve never seen here.”
He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll be pouring in from all over the US and maybe abroad to find out what’s going on. Did you see Tommy?”
“Yeah.” She chuckled. “He’s kind of taken with Sue.”
“Good. She deserves someone who wants her.”
She cocked her head to the side. “It doesn’t make you even a little bit jealous?”
“She was never the one I wanted. I told you that before.”
Their eyes connected and he stared at her for a long while. The beautiful way her lips curved. Her cheekbones high and proud that framed her thin pixie nose. The way her fingers delicately picked at the items on her plate. Yet he’d seen them be strong and forceful as well. In a different world, she could have been a model or an actress or a beauty queen.
“If you’d met me when I was human you wouldn’t have given me the time of day,” he said.
Her eyebrows drew together. “What? That’s not true.”
“It’s not an accusation, just an observation. Because of what I am now, I was able to meet and love you. If nothing else, that alone was worth it.”
“I don’t love you because of what you are. I love you because of who you are.”
He took a deep breath. Just those simple words. Her telling him she loved him made everything he was going through that much more bearable.
“What would you say if I asked you to marry me?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“What would you say?”
“William, I don’t really think this is the time.”
“Why? Who knows how much time we have left. How much time I have left.”
She smiled. “Oh, so this is one of those take pity on a dying man proposals?”
He shrugged. “If that works.”
She shoved a piece of meat in her mouth and shook her head. “You’re insane.”
“With what I’ve done lately I’d have to agree with you on that, but I’m asking you this now as sane as I can be.”
She licked her fingers. “Okay. I’ll play along. Say we did get married. How do you see our life together?”
“Well, we’d live here.”
“Next to Danika and Mason? I don’t think so.”
“We could find our own room somewhere else in the house. Maybe a room down by Lance and…” Lance was gone. “Sinya.” His heart ached for Sinya and what she must be going through.
“Maybe a room not next to a baby. I get cranky when I don’t get my beauty sleep.”
“So, you don’t want kids?”
Sadness clouded her features. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.” He grabbed her hand. Anger at what she’d been through coursed through him. “As soon as all of this is over, I’m going to find that bastard and we’re going to get your little girl back.”
She shook her head. “She doesn’t know me. It’s been two years. It’s not fair to disrupt her life. I would like to know that she’s okay though. Loved and taken care of.”
“I wasn’t adopted till I was over twice her age. You deserve to s
ee your child.”
“I was a slave. Slaves don’t have rights.”
He’d never thought about it before. All those women who’d given birth as breeding slaves to vampyr babies. What ever happened to them?
“Then we’ll change it. Make sure that never happens again.” So many things about the society he lived in needed changing.
She cocked her head. “I never knew you were an idealist.”
“I’m not. I’m a… fairest.”
“A fairest? I’m not even sure what that means.”
There was a knock.
William pulled on his sweats and T-shirt before calling for them to come in.
Danika and Mason walked into the room followed by Sherman and Roth. William tried to straighten the covers, and Evan sat up and put her plate on the nightstand.
“I think this is yours.” Roth held Evan’s backpack out to her.
“My clothes.” She took her bag and set it on the floor by the bed.
Danika sat next to William, her eyes filled with concern. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile but he felt a drip on his neck and her eyes traveled to it. He reached for a tissue and blotted the blood from his ear.
“Can you tell me what happened?” she asked.
“Well, everything was fine. I followed Evan like we’d agreed. Then she was attacked and stabbed by vampyr slavers. Infection set in, and I took her the rest of the way to her enclave. I was captured and tortured for information. I gave them everything they wanted to know, but it still wasn’t enough. In the end they used me as a guinea pig for a new vaccine they are trying out to cure vamps.”
“Cure vamps?” asked Sherman.
“They want to turn them human again.”
Danika’s eyes shifted to Evan. “Have they had success?”
“Not yet,” she replied. “They think they’re close but who knows.”
“And how do they have the equipment to do these kinds of tests?” asked Sherman. “Who’s doing them?”
“A Vampire named Nicholas. He had something to do with the original virus, I think,” said Evan. “They have an entire lab set up on the top floor of the hotel. It’s pretty advanced. Equipment of all kinds. They’ve gotten it from hospitals and medical labs and military facilities.”
Danika’s face grew paler than William thought possible.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Sherman moved around the bed to face her. She looked up at him and shook her head.
“It’s not possible. He’s dead.”
“The body was never recovered,” replied Sherman.
“What’s going on?” William asked. “Who’s not dead?”
“Nicholas,” she replied. “My father.”
Her father? That would explain all the questions.
“I knew it,” said Evan.
The group looked at her.
“When I saw him the first time, I knew he reminded me of someone. It was you. You look like him, except for the red hair. His is black.”
“Then it is him,” said Sherman. “But why would he be helping humans?”
“I don’t think he is,” said William. “I think he wants to undo what was done and the humans just happen to be a means to an end.”
“But he could have come to me,” said Danika. “Why wouldn’t he come to me?”
“Chase has only just died,” said Mason. “Most likely your father feared for his safety and yours. As far as he knows Chase is still alive.”
The anguish on Danika’s face was heartbreaking. Her gaze connected with William’s.
“But why would he experiment on you?” she asked.
“He didn’t, sort of,” said Evan. “Lou, my uncle who raised me, wanted to kill William. Nicholas offered this as a different option. He believed this would work. Lou went along with it.”
Danika shook her head and covered her face before looking up at William again. “Then the mission was a failure.”
“Not exactly,” said William. “We now know how big that enclave is and what their firepower is like. It’s true I’ve never seen one that big or that organized before but they are out there. And not just this one either.”
“They have weapons,” said Evan. “I’ve seen them, but not nuclear weapons. Lou and my cousin Peter are mad at the way things have gone for humans here, but I don’t think most people in the enclave feel like they do. I think most humans want what we’ve always wanted, freedom.”
“Are they a threat?” asked Sherman.
Evan looked around the group and then her eyes landed on William. “I think if they’re left alone, they’ll leave us alone. All of them.”
“All of them?”
“I was told there are dozens of compounds around the country like ours.”
“Thousands of humans?” asked Danika.
“Tens of thousands.”
“But they won’t help us?” asked Mason.
Evan shook her head. “No. They won’t. And I won’t tell you where they are.”
Danika waved her hand. “We have no interest in finding them. However I would like to have words with your uncle for what he did to William.”
“What happened downstairs?” asked William. “Do we have enough on our side?”
Danika pressed her fingers into her temple and Mason rubbed her shoulders as they slumped.
“No. We don’t have enough to keep the demons at bay. But we have enough to put up a fight. I’ve been in contact with Vampires from all over the world in the last two weeks. The entire second barracks is full of fledglings. All the houses in the neighborhood have been occupied by Vampires and vampyr ready to fight.”
“But most of them look like they’ve never seen a fight in their lives,” said Evan.
Danika nodded. “And therein lies the problem. We have all the trackers that we could find, but we’ve lost heavy casualties in our fight so far. Without a miracle, there’s nothing that will stop the demons from taking over. And with Selene gone…”
“There’s no one to teach how to fight demons,” William finished.
“I can teach,” said Mason. “But unlike my beautiful sister, I simply remind them of what’s coming.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” said Danika. “Right now I want to hear what Doc has found out and figure out a way to cure William.” She gave him a tight smile and with all she had going on, he didn’t have the heart to tell her he knew he was going to die.
“I’ll get him.” Roth turned to leave.
“What do you think?” William called.
Roth stopped and turned back, his expression guarded. “I think I’ll go down fighting to keep this world and everyone in it safe. Just as every one of my men will.”
The unspoken words hit like a slap to the face. Even if William was cured. It wouldn’t matter. They were all going to die.
Chapter 22
Over the next forty-eight hours things got worse for William and more crowded at the coven house. Evan found it tough trying to find a place to fit in.
William had begun to feed almost every two hours and they were running out of donors. The mental toll on Evan had become a strain. She found herself needing to get out of the room and go for a walk frequently. William’s inability to control the lust wasn’t something she knew how to handle. Even when he looked at her now, his eyes were greedy and hungry. Doc had yet to find anything to help cure William. He’d told her he’d never seen anything like the virus before. Though neither spoke of it, the thread of hope inside grew thinner and thinner.
Tommy had taken to watching William for her when she went out to get air. She’d protested at first; coming back to find Tommy dead on the floor was something she wouldn’t have been able to deal with. But William had promised to keep himself in check while she was gone, and she had to trust his word.
Danika and Mason had been doing little more than answering the now ever-open front door. Vampires and vampyr from everywhere
were pouring into Chicago by the dozens. But for every one that came, there were excuses as to why another half dozen couldn’t.
Evan sat in the garden by the pond staring up into the sky, her thoughts on the nights sleeping in the bed of her uncle’s truck before they’d arrived at the enclave in Palm Springs. Every night had been fraught with fear of death as well as finding a new home. After all the years in between, tonight was no different.
“Can I sit?”
Mason walked toward her.
She shrugged. “It’s your house.”
He sat on the rock wall and looked up at the stars. “Beautiful night.”
She watched him, unease settling into her bones. “Yup.”
“I used to sit and stare at the stars back before I was captured. They always seem closer and more brilliant in the mountains.”
“That they do.”
He stared up into the sky for several minutes before he dropped his gaze to his hands. “Doc said there’s nothing he can do for William.”
“When? Is he up there?” She stood to leave but Mason waved at her to sit.
“Danika is with him now. Give them some time. They’re close. She feels responsible for what’s happened to William.”
“Why?”
“He saved her life.”
“And she saved his.”
Mason shook his head. “She doesn’t see it that way now.”
“What did Doc say?”
“The virus has spread too far. The blood he drinks is like putting a bandage over a gushing wound. All it does is replace what he’s losing hourly.”
“So if he keeps drinking he can live?”
“Is he really living? Lying in bed. Drinking from people. Bleeding from everywhere.”
Her heart squeezed at the truth. “So there’s nothing to be done.” The very words threatened to have her crying again.
“I didn’t say that.”
They stared at each other for a long time.
“What then? Tell me and I’ll do it,” she whispered.
Mason swallowed hard and looked at his hands again. “I may be able to cure the vaccine.”
“Then what are we waiting for? If you have a cure, if you can fix him—”
“I didn’t say I could fix him. I said I could stop the virus that’s killing him. But there will be consequences. Side effects.”
Vengeance of the Demons Page 20