Real Vampires Take No Prisoners (Real Vampires Don't Sparkle Book 3)

by Amy Fecteau

  The snow reached up to his knees. He lumbered after Quin, cursing the rotation of the Earth around the sun, the snow, the water cycle, and Apollonia. His arm sent out bursts of pain whenever it thought he’d forgotten about it. Matheus added the human nervous system to the list of things to curse.

  Quin didn’t slow down when they reached the trees. Others had the same idea as he did. Matheus caught glimpses of people in the woods. For a moment, he thought they’d followed Quin and him, but then he realized most ran blind. There seemed to be no consensus on a direction besides away. His feet felt like blocks of ice. He stumbled, landing in the prickly arms of an evergreen. Quin still didn’t stop. He yanked him from the branches, ignoring Matheus’s yelps.

  The snow burned on the soles of his feet. Bits of ice dug into the soft flesh of the arches. Branches and rocks lurked under the snow, waiting for a victim. Shoes. Shoes held a vital role in running for one’s life. Forget about the ABCs; why didn’t they teach that on Sesame Street?

  “Where the hell are you going?” he yelled. The flames of the manor house had vanished from sight, only a dim glow barely visible above the treetops. “Quin, stop!”

  Quin whirled around, his arm already swinging.

  Matheus ducked, but not fast enough. The blow bounced off his temple. Matheus blinked; pretty white lights danced through his vision. He felt the world tilt.

  One day… His last moment of lucidity faded. I’d like to go one day without―

  The lights winked out. Matheus tumbled off the side of the Earth into the empty dark.

  moke hung on the ends of the wind. Consciousness crept up. First, the sensation of cold on his back, contrasting with the fire burning over his arm. Then, the smaller aches, a throbbing in his jaw, the soreness in the soles of his feet. Finally, settling into his body, tiny shifts in alignment, trying to find the right fit.

  Matheus opened his eyes. He lay on his back, looking up past a canopy of tree branches at a starlit sky beyond the lacy pattern. A fine layer of snow coated his face, deposited by the wind. Matheus guessed he’d been out for about twenty minutes.

  “I am getting tired of passing out and waking up in strange places.” He spread his arms out in the snow. “It was one thing when I was an addict, but this is just ridiculous.”

  In the branches overhead, a shadow moved. Matheus stopped creating snow angels, and stood. He made a vain attempt to knock the snow from his clothes. Twisting his arm, he examined the raw gouge left by the bullet. The wound looked like a burn, shiny deep red in the center. Matheus sighed. He wiggled his fingers through the hole in his sweater. He’d heal. In terms of pain, he’d definitely felt worse. But unless he learned how to darn cashmere, his sweater had no chance of recovery.

  Pushing aside his grief, Matheus turned in a circle, scanning the gaps between the trees. He knew Quin hadn’t gone far.

  “Just dump me wherever,” he said. “Don’t worry about frostbite or anything. I don’t need my toes or anything.”

  A large, black shape dropped out of the tree, landing in front of him.

  He yelped, leaping backward, and slammed into a tree trunk.

  Quin rose, brushing the snow off his pants. “Nervous thing, aren’t you?”

  “What the hell are you doing jumping out of trees like a goddamned squirrel?” Matheus grabbed a handful of snow, packing it into a tight ball. He flung the snow at Quin, striking him in the shoulder. He had been aiming for his head, but Quin hadn’t been so considerate as to provide a stationary target. “You think you’re Batman?”

  “Which is it, bats or squirrels?” asked Quin. He flicked snow off his shoulder. Like Matheus, he lacked shoes. He didn’t have a shirt either. He’d be barred from convenience stores across the United States. Quin stepped closer to Matheus, snow crunching beneath his feet. Goosebumps rippled over his skin.

  “Both,” said Matheus. “Neither. It doesn’t matter; you’re psychotic either way.”

  He cocked his head to the side. For a moment, Matheus waited for a reply, but Quin shivered and lowered his gaze.

  “I need a favor from you,” He wrapped his arms around his chest.

  Stiffness set into his frame. Whether put there by the cold, or by something else, Matheus didn’t know. “Uh.” Matheus could to handle an angry Quin, a homicidal Quin, or a domineering Quin. But a depressed Quin fell so far outside his worldview that his brain failed to process it. Quin did not get depressed, and he certainly did not ask for favors. He didn’t ask for anything. He both loved and hated that about him.

  “I need you to kill me,” said Quin.

  The whole world skipped. Static surrounded them. Matheus exhaled. Closing his eyes, he rewound the tape to when the world made sense and reality was merely an adorable prankster and not frothing-at-the-mouth insane. A blissful feeling fell over him. Of course, he hadn’t just heard that. Silly ears, hearing things that weren’t there. Forget invisibility or flight; Matheus had the super power of denial.

  “Are you listening?” asked Quin.

  “Of course,” said Matheus.

  “Will you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Kill me.”

  Matheus floated. “Hmm, no.”

  Quin’s head snapped up. He looked at Matheus, his eyes narrowed. “Snap out of it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Quin slapped him. Matheus felt the muscles in his neck twang. His whole body rocked to the side. He’d been slapped twice now, in one night. Not to mention the bruise spreading across his temple from when Quin had hit him earlier.

  “What the fuck?” Matheus shoved Quin, surprised when he staggered back a few steps.

  “Listen to me,” said Quin, his voice low. “I can’t go on like this.”

  “Like what?” His jaw ached, but that paled in comparison to the gnawing anxiety in his gut. Apparently, Quin held the kryptonite to denial.

  The muscles in Quin’s arms tightened. His jawbone pressed against his chest. He stared at Matheus’s feet. The wind picked up, scattering the top layer of snow into a fine mist. A glittering frost covered his bare skin. He shuddered, looking as though he wanted to crawl inside himself and hide.

  Matheus thought he might throw up. The ability might have gone away, but the impulse remained. He wanted to reach out, draw Quin close, but something told him he’d only make things worse. He shoved his fists into the pockets of his jeans.

  “There are two people living in my head,” said Quin.

  “You’ll get your memory back. Eventually. Something will happen and—”

  “No.”

  Matheus flinched. “I’m not killing you.”

  “He creeps around my head, leaving these things.” Quin paced. A wild despair contorted his features. He looked like a stranger. If he’d been on the subway, the other passengers would have fled to the far side of the car already. He had the appearance of a man who’d stand on the street corner, handing out Xeroxed, densely packed flyers about the coming apocalypse. “Artifacts. Memories. It isn’t me.”

  Matheus wished Quin had stuck with threatening to kill him. He knew how to handle that. People threatened to kill him on a semi-regular basis. He got nervous when people didn’t threaten him. They might try to kill him without giving him a helpful warning. But this… this didn’t have an easy answer. Matheus wondered why people didn’t write instruction manuals for things that actually mattered, instead of Facebook for Dummies and Crafting with Cat Hair.

  “What about the bond?” Matheus asked. “What happens if you die?”

  “Of course.” Quin laughed, tight and bitter. “What happens to you?”

  “So sorry I’m concerned with my own well-being.” Hysteria bubbled in Matheus’s voice. “We’re not all suicidal maniacs, you know.”

  Quin stopped pacing. He raised his head, gazing into the trees. In the distance, an owl hooted. Nearby, something moved among the evergreens with cautious steps.

  “Quin.” Matheus stretched out hi
s hand, fingers brushing Quin’s shoulder. “It will get better.”

  He pulled away as Quin turned. He curled his fingers to his chest, the soft touch of the cashmere comforting. “It will.”

  The angles of Quin’s face twisted. Matheus stumbled backward, a second too late. Quin lunged, knocking them both to the ground.

  “You think I want this?” Quin screamed. “I don’t have a choice. I—can’t—take—it!”

  His hands closed around Matheus’s throat, shaking him, beating his head against the frozen ground. Matheus clawed at Quin’s wrists, raking channels in flesh. Blood slicked his skin; Matheus’s fingers slipped, his nails too short to dig in fully. Matheus knew he couldn’t be choked to death, but he’d seen the corpses Quin left behind. He didn’t need a sword to remove his head. Matheus kicked. His heels compressed the snow, smoothing the top into a sheet of slick ice. He arched, shoving, driving his fingers into the spaces between Quin’s ribs. Nothing made any difference. Quin pressed into him, immovable, a gaunt, determined expression drawn over his features. Matheus’s spine bent in ways spines had not been designed to bend in.

  He jammed his thumbs into Quin’s eyes. With a hiss of annoyance, Quin squeezed harder. Matheus imagined his head popping off, like the cap of a tube of toothpaste. The muscles in his neck strained, but they didn’t stand a chance. Quin growled, and leaned forward with all his weight. Matheus closed his eyes. He didn’t want his last sight on this earth to be Quin’s face as he killed him.

  Crack!

  A moment passed before Matheus realized Quin had released him. A branch had broken, knocking loose a load of snow. Matheus let out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh. He thought Quin had broken his spine. He touched his throat, wincing as he prodded the pulpy flesh.

  “Quin?” Matheus sat up. His voice sounded like a rusty razor in a blender. Nice for an old-timey blues singer, but not worth the strangling.

  “You have to kill me.” Quin spoke from the shadows, somewhere to Matheus’s left.

  “I don’t think I can,” said Matheus. “Just like you can’t kill me. The bond.”

  “Fuck the bond.”

  “I don’t know what will happen. Both of us could die.”

  “Fine,” said Quin.

  “You really think you’d let that happen?” Matheus searched for some kind of leverage, any weapon to use against Quin’s madness.

  “You mean, would he?” Quin moved closer. Long scrapes marked his wrists; dusky red circles ringed his eyes. Matheus felt a slight vindication for his throat. “The other me, the one that turned you.”

  “There’s only you, Quin. They’re your memories, even if you can’t remember them.”

  “Then why do you flinch every time I call you Sunshine? That’s what he called you, isn’t it? Part of you knows even if you won’t admit it.”

  Matheus fell silent. His throat ached, his arm ached, everything ached, but beyond that, he was tired. Tired to the point where even the thought of action exhausted him. He had no more energy for arguing, no more energy for anything. The cold seeped in through his pants, but he didn’t move. He tried to remember the last time he’d slept. Months ago, now. He missed sleep. He missed crawling into bed at the end of a taxing day; nothing left to do but pull the blankets up against the world. He stared at his hands resting in his lap.

  “Matheus?”

  “I can’t kill you.” Matheus flexed his fingers. Quin’s blood stained his nails. “I know I’ve threatened it often enough, but I just can’t. I—” He clenched his fingers, cutting himself off before he said too much.

  “And I can’t kill you,” said Quin.

  “Yeah.”

  “What if I become human again?”

  Matheus shook his head. He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t want to think about anything. A gray haze clouded his mind, neither pleasant nor painful. For once, his brain had nothing to say.

  “Was the bond still in place?” Quin pushed.

  Why didn’t Quin leave him alone? Matheus shook his head again, hoping he’d take the hint and go.

  “Matheus, could you still feel the bond?”

  Quin knelt in front of him. He grasped Matheus’s hands, his thumbs resting lightly on his wrists.

  Matheus shuddered. “I don’t know.”

  He pulled his hands away. Crossing his arms, he drew his knees up, leaning against a tree trunk for support. “I couldn’t sense you, and I couldn’t tell when you were in trouble.”

  “Then that’s the answer.”

  Quin sounded so hopeful that Matheus wanted to weep. He laid his forehead on his knees, waiting for inspiration to strike, but nothing came to him. The bittersweet comfort of the gray haze slipped away, leaving him weary and trying to dance on quicksand. Old ideas surfaced, old arguments, leading them in an endless circle.

  “Can’t we ask someone first?” Matheus asked. “Maybe there’s something that we’re missing.”

  “Who?” Quin asked. “Zeb might know, but he’s dead, apparently.”

  Matheus lifted his head. “You remember Zeb?”

  “I’ve known him for centuries. Does it matter?”

  “Uh, no, I guess not.” Matheus pushed the hair out of his eyes. “We’ll find someone else. Someone less ash-y.”

  “I won’t wait forever,” Quin replied in what Matheus had come to think of as his crazy voice. He missed Quin’s razorblade voice.

  Anger spiked in him, burning away the last of the fog. “Well, if you weren’t so la-di-da about everything, and actually cared how things worked instead of just want they do, we wouldn’t be in this mess.” He waved his arms.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Quin.

  He seemed taken aback by Matheus’s sudden mood shift. He supposed that proved Quin still hadn’t remembered him. No one who knew Matheus as well as Quin had was ever surprised by the zigzagging path his emotions, and by extension his conversations, took.

  He scrambled to his feet, savoring the brief chance to tower over Quin.

  “You and your blasé attitude to life.” He stomped across the snow, arms flying wildly. “Don’t know what you’re doing? Do it anyway! Consequences? Never heard of them!”

  Matheus had just settled into his stride, when a damp, hairy weight dropped onto his shoulders, bending him double. Matheus gurgled. The hairy thing growled in his ear. Not the sexy kind of growl, the about to be eaten kind.

  “Down!” Alistair’s voice snapped like a whip.

  The weight lifted off his back. He straightened, checking his spine for breaks as he turned and came nose-to-nose with a massive wolf sitting on its haunches, tail beating against the snow. Well, something wolf-like, at least. Freddie grinned at him, a bit of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth. A dark tarnish covered his teeth, but that didn’t dull their threat any. Behind him, Quin stood. He tensed, waiting for either Freddie or Quin to attack, but neither moved.

  Alistair appeared a second later, crunching over the snow. He had a wool cap pulled down over his hair, and mismatched mittens. Also, a pair of boots. He stopped beside Freddie, patting him between the ears. “Good boy.”

  The saccharin-sweet tone made him sick. “Alistair, how’d you find us?”

  “I just followed the sound of angry ranting,” said Alistair. “You’re the only person I know who’d stop to have a tantrum in the middle of fleeing for your life.”

  Quin snorted.

  “Right,” said Matheus. “It was Freddie, was it?”

  Alistair bent down, giving Freddie a good scrub between the ears. “Who’s a good werewolf?” he cooed.

  Freddie’s wolfy grin widened with what Matheus perceived as a distinct smugness.

  “Who knew the ability to track us down like a wounded deer would come in handy?” Alistair looked up at Matheus with a fixed smile.

  “You’re angry with me,” said Matheus. “Again.”

  “Is there someone who isn’t angry with you?” Quin asked from behind. “Although, I suppose t
here are people who haven’t met you yet.”

  “Why would I be angry?” asked Alistair, with that same fixed smile. “Just because the man who claims to be my friend, who claims to care deeply about my well-being, abandons me during a firefight to run off with a deranged psychopath. Why would that bother me?”

  “No idea,” said Matheus.

  “Matheus!” Alistair dropped the smile, threw his hands up, and gaped at him.

  “I didn’t have a choice. I was rescued against my will.”

  “Sure,” said Alistair.

  “Ask Quin,” said Matheus.

  “Oh, don’t be foolish,” said Quin. “Who’d believe a deranged psychopath?”

  “And I got punched in the jaw,” said Matheus, deciding to ignore Quin for the time being. “Not to mention—”

  “What?” asked Alistair.

  “Nothing.” Matheus tugged up the collar of his sweater. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  “Can you talk while we escape?” Alistair waved a hand in the direction of the house. “There are still people trying to kill us.”

  “Fine. Which way?”

  “Freddie, darling, find us a road or something.”

  The werewolf bounded off through the trees, pausing for the rest of them to catch up.

  Quin looked at Matheus, then at Alistair. He sped up, keeping pace with Freddie. They stayed within sight, but far enough away for Matheus and Alistair to speak without being overheard.

  “Are those two okay up there?” Matheus glanced at Alistair’s feet, wondering exactly what size boot he wore.

  “Freddie got along with Quin,” said Alistair. “He’s the only one who did, aside from Milo.”

  “Quin’s not himself.”

  They walked in silence. The top of layer of snow broke with each step. Matheus’s height gave him an easier time than Alistair, but he thought the boots evened things out. He wondered why anyone ever wanted to live in a place where frozen rain fell from the sky, and then hung around for a third of the year. Especially in a time before television and central heating.