by Cameron Dean
I closed my eyes then, reaching for that place deep inside me, the undead zone. Reaching for the unique rapport I shared with Ash, strong because our blood bond was strong. Come to me, my love, I thought. Give me your power. Use my body as your own.
This was our secret weapon, the thing that Sloane would never think to look for. Ash and I would fight together. Together, we would take back what Sloane had stolen. What would become of us in the future could be decided when the battle with Sloane and the Board was finally over.
Fourteen
Sloane was waiting right where I left him. His eyes lit as I approached.
“Ready?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answered. He slid off the stool, holding me lightly by one arm, and we began to make our way to the door. “You do realize this was supposed to be a double cross.”
“Of course.” He pulled the door open and we stepped out into the cool evening air. “Though I’m a little surprised Ash went for the obvious choice.”
“Maybe he figured it was so obvious, you’d assume he wouldn’t choose it,” I said. We hit the sidewalk, and I turned left. “I even parked my car in a nice secluded spot.”
Sloane slowed our pace by exerting pressure on my arm. “We could always take mine.”
“Please don’t tell me you came in anything so prosaic as an internal combustion vehicle,” I said.
Sloane laughed, low in his throat. Good, very good, I thought. Everything about him exuded confidence. But Ash and I were joined now. I could feel his power dancing like electrical current just beneath my skin. Feel his eagerness to take this longtime adversary down. It was sort of like being a walking, talking kaleidoscope. Even just progressing down the street had facets, possibilities to it that I had never noticed before. I looked like Candace Steele, walked and talked like her, but those moments alone had made me something more. I was Ash and Candace now, joined in the ultimate rapport.
“Besides,” I went on as Sloane and I crossed the street—only two more blocks to go. “We deviate from the plan in any way and Ash is bound to get suspicious.”
“Can’t have that, can we?” commented Sloane.
We traversed the second crosswalk then bore right, down a small side street. At once, everything grew darker, more remote. I swallowed, but my throat was bone dry. About another block now. I could feel the way Sloane tensed, almost heard his neck muscles strain with the effort he was making to look only straight ahead. Not to give away the fact that he expected an attack by glancing side to side.
“There is just one thing I should mention,” I said.
“And what is that?” Sloane replied.
Quick as lightning, I twisted from his grasp, pivoted, then drove the flat of my hand up, hard, beneath his jaw, feeling Ash’s power sing up my arm. Sloane staggered back, blood gushing from his mouth.
“It’s still a double cross.”
With a howl of rage, Sloane lunged. I danced out of range, cursing my high-heeled shoes.
“You little bitch,” Sloane gasped out. He ran a hand across his mouth, flicked blood away with his fingers.
“You keep calling me that,” I said. “I think we need to work on your vocabulary, Sloane. There are so many more interesting ways to describe a woman. Particularly a strong one.”
He lunged for me once more. I felt Ash’s power surge inside me. And then, for how long I never quite knew, I lost myself. Somewhere, I was still Candace Steele. I moved with her body, saw with her eyes. But the power, the strength, the hatred of my adversary, all those belonged to Ash. My body might not be as strong as his, but he used it well. Like the smallest child on the playground, the one school bullies love to pick on, until the child learns to use its small size to its advantage and goes on the offensive instead of simply cowering. Darting forward to land quick blows then dancing out of range, refusing to close with Sloane. I could feel his anger and frustration like a third member of the fight.
We’re going to do it, Ash. We’re going to win, I thought.
Then, literally as if from nowhere, I heard the rev of an engine. Headlights speared into my eyes. With a squeal of brakes, a car lurched to a halt at the curb not ten paces from where I fought with Sloane. I heard doors open and the sound of people getting out. I had no idea who the newcomers were, but I was aware that they left the engine running.
Trapped! I’m trapped, I realized.
If I stepped into the street, I’d be in the path of the car. If I moved toward the closest building, Sloane could pin me, just as he had done before. That left two options. I could turn and run away, or I could run toward Sloane.
In the time it took me to recognize my options, I was moving. Forward, still the only direction there was. Screaming like an Amazonian on the battlefield, I ran straight at Sloane. No more than an arm’s reach away, I caught a flash of movement to my right. And suddenly, Ash was there, in person, stepping between us, lunging toward Sloane, grabbing for his throat.
I felt a flash of panic. Would Ash be strong enough to fight Sloane? And in that instant of doubt, our rapport broke, and I knew we were each on our own.
Sloane knew it, too. He slammed Ash to the ground, and I heard his body hit pavement with a sickening thud. Without thinking, I launched myself at Sloane, grabbing for his arm. He lunged for me instead, his shoulder ramming into my ribs like a battering ram. With a scream, I went down. I just had time to see Ash get to his feet and spin toward me before strong arms seized me, hauled me to my feet, forced me on unwilling legs toward the car. The back passenger door was open. I kicked out, desperately struggling to throw my captor off-balance and free myself. Instead, I found myself facedown on the seat, a body covering mine.
“Go!” I heard a voice call out. With a jerk that almost hurled me from the seat, the car shot forward. I was flailing wildly now. Striking out at anything within reach, desperate to force a way out, to get back to Ash.
“For God’s sake, Candace,” the same voice exclaimed. “Stop fighting. You’re safe now.”
Just as the car rounded the corner, I managed to sit up, hurling myself sideways, pulling up on the door handle with all my might. My shoulder crashed painfully into the door. Locked, locked tight. I began to sob then, a wild and frantic sound, twisting my body to look out the back window. I couldn’t see Ash anymore. But I could see Sloane. One arm raised, fist clenched, and then the fist came down. Again. Again. Again. It was still rising and falling when the car completed the turn and he was lost to sight.
“Oh, Carl,” I gasped. “What have you done?”
The rest of the trip was accomplished in a daze of horror, a nightmare of total silence. Once I realized there was no more reason to fight, I did my best to take stock of my surroundings. I was in an unmarked police car. Chet was driving. I could see his face in the rearview mirror as we passed beneath the streetlights, saw the way his worried eyes kept flicking toward the backseat. After about three minutes, I knew where we were going: Bibi’s town house. I leaned back and closed my eyes. And it was only then that I realized Carl had his arms wrapped around me, holding me tight. And I remembered, suddenly, what had happened the last time Carl had held me in his arms.
I shifted out of them, as far away as I could. “Let me go, Carl. It’s not as if you’ve left me an escape route anyhow.”
“You’re welcome, Steele,” Carl said shortly. “We just saved your ass back there, or didn’t you notice?”
“You don’t know anything about it,” I said.
“You’re damn right I don’t,” Carl responded. “But that sure as hell is going to change before the night is over.”
Chet pulled the police car up in front of Bibi’s condo, popped the locks on the backseat doors, then switched the car off. As soon as he heard the locks click, Carl put a hand on my arm.
“You even think about running and I’ll have you in cuffs before you can blink,” he said.
“Gee, thanks,” I answered. “Good to know.”
In silence, the three of
us walked the short distance to the entrance to Bibi’s town house, Chet on one side, Carl on the other. Carl kept a tight grip on my arm. Chet didn’t touch me. So he knows, I thought. Had Bibi told him, or had he figured it out for himself? Not that it mattered much. I wondered what they’d said to Carl to get him to participate in the night’s events.
Chet rang the bell.
“Hello?” Bibi’s voice sounded through the door almost at once.
“Bibi, it’s Chet,” he said. “We’ve got her.”
Bibi opened the door at once. When she saw me, she made a strange, jerky movement, as if uncertain whether she wanted to hug me or lash out. Instead she stepped back, holding the door open wide. Chet stepped through first, then me, still attached to Carl.
The second we were all inside, I shook off Carl’s arm. “So what is this, some sort of intervention?”
Now that the initial shock of what had happened was wearing off, I could feel the adrenaline begin to course through my body once more. Unable to stand still, I paced Bibi’s living room like a caged tiger.
Ash, I have to get back to Ash, I thought.
“You can’t keep me here against my will,” I said. “You’ve got no right.”
Bibi’s face looked pale and strained, but her voice was firm when she finally spoke. “We’re your friends, Candace. We’re just trying to help.”
I stopped pacing, spun around.
“Help?” I all but shouted. “How can you help when you don’t know what the hell is going on?”
“Then why don’t you tell us?” Carl put in. His voice sounded calm, but I knew him well enough to recognize the sound. This was his interrogate-the-suspect voice.
“No,” I said. Calm down, Candace, I was chanting in my head. Calm down. If I acted too crazy, Carl could put me in a cell. Then I’d never be able to help Ash.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that, Carl,” I went on. “Please believe me when I say you don’t really want to know.”
He crossed the room in two quick strides, seized me by both arms. “I’m tired of hearing that you’re sorry,” he rapped out. “And I think the statute of limitations on ‘please believe me’ is all used up. I want to know what’s going on, Candace, and I want to know now. What kind of trouble has this Donahue gotten you into? Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
“No,” I said again, making my voice as steady as I could. “I’m not. I can’t tell you what’s going on, Carl. I want you to be safe, and the only way you can be is if you don’t know. Something my well-intentioned, high-minded friends here might have remembered before they dragged you into this.”
“For Christ’s sake, Candace,” Carl said, giving me a shake. “I’m a cop, not a kid. If Chet and Bibi can handle whatever this is, I sure as hell can.”
“That’s not the point,” I replied. “You ask them. Ask them if knowing helps them feel safer, if it helps them sleep better at night. Then ask them what the hell business they had bringing you along for the ride.”
“All right, Candace,” Bibi snapped. “I think you’ve made your point. Much as I hate to say it, she’s right, Carl. I guess you could say I brought you into this situation under false pretenses. I’m sorry, but it’s better for you not to know.”
“Please,” I said, reaching to hold Carl back now. “Just do this for me, Carl. Stop asking questions and go home. What I am involved in is dangerous. I want to know that you are safe, that just one person I have loved in the day-to-day world is untainted and whole. If you ever cared about me at all, walk away, Carl.”
Carl’s mouth had a funny crook to it, as if he was trying not to laugh or cry. “That’s manipulative and you know it,” he finally said.
I felt my own mouth twist. “Whatever it takes to get the job done. I don’t want to hurt you, Carl. And I don’t want to be responsible for getting you hurt.”
“Sometimes it happens anyway,” he replied.
“I know. So you do the best you can; you play the odds. I want you out of the game now, while there’s still time.”
He took one of my hands in his, then pressed his lips into the center of my palm. And for a moment I feared I would break down. Scream out my pain and fear for Ash, for Carl, for myself.
“You know where to find me if you need me,” Carl said as he let me go. “And don’t think this means I’m going to let you off the hook forever.”
“I know,” I said. “I won’t. Thank you, Carl.”
Without another word, he turned to Bibi. “I’ll expect you to stay in touch. And next time you decide you want my help, you can expect me to want some answers up front.”
He strode to the door, let himself out.
I counted the seconds, ignoring Bibi and Chet, waiting for the cruiser to pull away.
“Candace,” Bibi began.
“I don’t have time for this bullshit,” I said, then started for the door.
Bibi planted herself solidly in front of it. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Get out of my way, Bibi,” I said.
“Why?” she challenged. “So you can go back to Ash? Is that who you are now, Candace? Is it what you are? You finally gave in, gave him what he wanted so now it’s all about him.”
“That isn’t how it happened!” I cried. “You’re so sure you know everything, when in fact you don’t know one single fucking thing about what’s going on.
“I was as good as dead, Bibi. If not for Ash, I would be dead. He did what he had to do to save me, and yes, for the record, I asked for it. You try staring death straight in the face and see what choice you make.”
“I don’t believe you,” Bibi said, but I could see my revelation had shaken her. “I don’t believe you. You love him. You’ve always loved him.”
“That’s right. I have,” I said. “And you know what the big problem with that is? I didn’t recognize it in time. You go on believing Ash is the one and only bad guy in the world. Personally, I’m putting my money on Sloane.”
“Sloane?” Bibi asked.
“The other bidder for the heart scarab,” I said impatiently. “Another vampire. He’s the one who attacked Randolph; he attacked me. Ash and I were setting a trap for him tonight. That’s what your little rescue interrupted. Now Sloane has Ash, and I have no idea where to find him. I only know I’ve got to get to him before it’s too late. Now you can get out of my way, or I can make you. Either way, I’m going.”
“Too late for what, Candace?” Chet’s quiet voice asked even as, with a quick jerky movement, Bibi stepped aside.
“Something bad is coming,” I said, my hand on the doorknob. “Ash may be our only hope of stopping it.”
“What is it?” Chet asked at once. “What’s coming?”
Pain surged through me then, utterly without warning. A hot and brutal sear of lightning straight through my chest. I dropped to my knees with a cry. Through the roaring that filled my ears, I thought I heard Bibi’s voice. Desperately, I waved her back.
“Don’t touch me,” I managed. “Don’t.”
A second wave took me then. I threw my head back, body trembling with effort as I tried to let the pain roll through me. If I fought it, it would shatter me to pieces. I felt my vision dim. Then, for one instant, it sharpened. Absolutely everything within my field of vision was crystal clear. And what I saw around me wasn’t Bibi’s living room, but what looked like two great shoulders of red roche, one slightly higher than the other. As if some giant with a crooked back had become immortalized in stone. I had a sense of motion, of being propelled directly toward them. Pain exploded through my head, so bright and hot that I saw stars. Then both it and the vision faded out. I dropped my head. My arms gave way and I fell onto the carpet.
“Candace, for God’s sake,” Bibi said. I felt her kneeling beside me.
“Okay,” I managed. “I’m okay. Just give me a minute.”
“I’ll go get a glass of water,” I heard Chet say. I rolled over onto my back, closed my eyes, listened to his footst
eps depart then return.
“Can you sit up?” he inquired.
“I think so,” I said. I managed it after a moment. With Bibi’s arm around me, I got to my feet, made it to the closest chair. Chet handed me the water and I took a few sips.
“What just happened, Candace?” he asked quietly.
“I think,” I answered slowly, “that it was a moment of rapport with Ash. I felt what he felt, saw what he saw. For a few seconds, I wasn’t in this room anymore. I was somewhere in the mountains. I—” My voice broke, and I forced myself to go on. “I think they’re torturing him.”
“Who are they, Candace?” Chet asked steadily. “Tell us what’s really going on.”
I gave way to my fears and my own pain then. Dropping my face down into my hands, I wept like an abandoned child.
“I’ve failed him,” I said. “He saved me and now I can’t help him.”
“Then let us help you,” Chet said. “You said something bad is coming. Tell us what it is so we can help you fight it.”
“I warn you, I’m going to sound insane,” I said as I scrubbed at the tears on my cheeks. It would do no good to break down. If Ash was weak, if he was in pain, I had to stay strong, in more ways than one.
“There’s a group of vampires called the Board. They’re incredibly powerful and completely evil. Sloane is one of them. They’re trying to perform an ancient ritual that will make them immortal.”
“Immortal?” Bibi said.
“I told you it would sound insane,” I reminded her. I began to speak rapidly now, wanting to get it all out. “To complete the ritual the Board needs three objects—they’re called the Emblems of Thoth. Two are already in their possession. The first they’ve had for a long time. But the second is the scarab that Randolph won at that auction. That’s why Sloane stole it from him.”