They didn’t find Bryan at his apartment or at his office, which left Julian uneasy. The only other place for a fledgling vampire to be before sunset was safe in a vampire stronghold—specifically Lambert’s vampire stronghold.
No matter what he said, he couldn’t convince Zoe and Tanya to abandon their plan to unvamp their friend. They insisted on tracking him down, wherever he might be.
It was nearly dark by the time they reached Fairmont. Julian hoped his instincts were wrong and they wouldn’t find anyone there, but even he recognized the blue SUV parked inconspicuously under cover of the sheltering willows. The shaded pathways would provide a vampire plenty of cover to move about, especially in the feeble purple light of dusk.
Ever the pragmatist, Julian had no doubt this would not end well. Nor was their little frontal assault getting off to a good start, either.
“We can’t just waltz in and ask to see Bryan,” he told his passengers after he parked his Lexus a discreet distance away from the SUV.
Zoe had already begun dialing her cell phone. “We don’t have to go in. Bryan is going to come out.”
Julian raised a brow. An ambush, much like the one in which Lambert had trapped him, was probably their only chance. And it wasn’t much of one. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in the driver’s seat, less than eager to see what she had in mind.
With deft fingers, she dialed her cell phone and, when Bryan answered, Zoe sobbed convincingly into the receiver. “Bry…it’s me.” Her pause was full of unspoken angst, and Julian found himself sitting forward again to listen while she did some vamp-worthy acting.
“Bryan…I need help. You’ve got to come right away. I know you’re busy but please…Bry, it’s Julian.”
After a moment, Zoe flipped the phone closed and tilted her head in the direction of the walkway that led to the rear access road. “Give him five minutes.”
“That was too easy.”
Zoe jammed her cell phone back in her purse and pulled out the devamping potion. “I told you, he’s still our friend. There’s something left inside him, and we have to save it.”
Zoe tensed the moment she heard Bryan’s swift, determined footsteps on the paved walkway. She stood on the far side of his SUV, her fingers white-knuckled around Hester’s uncorked potion bottle. A short distance away, Julian waited behind the trunk of an ancient willow, wooden stake at the ready to defend her. Tanya crouched behind Julian’s car out of sight, ready to create a diversion if necessary.
Zoe would have one shot to restore Bryan’s humanity. If she failed, she’d probably never get another chance.
Her hand shook with the effort not to spill the potion on herself while she waited for him to get close. Absurdly, she wondered if he would be able to forgive her for what she was about to do.
His footsteps slowed, and she moved forward a fraction of an inch. Throw the potion, ask questions later. That was her plan, and it ended there. Beyond that, she had nothing.
She listened for his movements, the rustle of his jacket as he shrugged out of it, the jingle of his keys as he reached for the door lock.
Before she could make her move, though, a hand closed over her wrist. A split second later, she found herself clutched in his unyielding vampire grip.
Just as Bryan sauntered out from the cover of the sheltering willows and approached his SUV, a muffled squeak of surprise issued from behind Julian’s car. Julian couldn’t see Tanya, but he didn’t need vampire senses to know she was in trouble. So much for the ambush approach. Bryan was no fool—at least in this sense. He’d obviously seen through Zoe’s subterfuge and brought reinforcements.
Julian brandished his stake and headed for the Lexus. He hated leaving Zoe defenseless, but he didn’t think for a moment that she would forgive him if he let her friend get eaten.
Before he took a second step, Enoch Lambert appeared in front of him. The shiny barrel of a revolver glinted in the waning light, pointed directly at Julian’s heart.
“I’m proud of you, Zoe,” Bryan whispered in her ear as he tilted her head to the side to expose her neck. “I never thought you were this brave. Wandering into a vampire enclave for a second time…and all for me. I assume that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To ‘rescue’ me?”
If she could have drawn breath, she would have responded, but while Bryan pried the potion bottle from her icy fingers with one hand, he exerted an ever-increasing pressure on her throat with the other. Her vision swam and her legs seemed to dissolve beneath her, leaving her hanging against him, limp and useless.
The potion bottle made a blunt sound when it hit the pavement. Defeated, Zoe shifted her gaze to watch her only chance to save her friend shatter into a million pieces. But it didn’t. It hit the ground and rolled along the smooth cement until it came to rest next to the front tire of the SUV. Not that it mattered if the bottle broke. Without the cork, the precious golden liquid inside would leak out anyway, drop by drop.
“Nice try. Really. I’m impressed. I’m not even angry. In fact, I’m pleased you came here. It saves me a trip back to your place. I was going to come over tonight and offer you a gift.” Bryan bent his head and brushed his lips against Zoe’s neck. She shivered. This was the same feeling she’d had in the alley next to her apartment building the night before she and Julian had left for Ocean City. She forced the faintest sound from her constricted throat and amazingly, Bryan let up on the pressure.
“What was that?”
“It was you, wasn’t it? You warned me away from Julian that night.” The thin whisper strained her voice and she coughed, but at least she could breathe now.
“Yes. That was me. I knew he was with you. I could smell him in your apartment, and it made me sick to think you’d trusted him so readily. When I told Mr. Lambert I knew you, he assigned me to keep tabs on Devlin’s movements. Why did you help him, Zoe? Of all people, why did it have to be you?”
“I…was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.” Zoe let out a breath, easing the pressure on her throat a little more. Her vision cleared just enough to show her the dark shadows surrounding Bryan’s car were empty. Where was Julian? What happened to Tanya?
“You’ve always had a knack for that, haven’t you? You’ve been in the wrong place ever since you hooked up with Julian Devlin. I could have taken care of him that first night, but I called off the chase when I realized he had you. Now he’s the only thing standing in the way of Mr. Lambert taking full control.”
“What’s so great about Lambert? Julian was in charge when you were turned. Shouldn’t you be loyal to him?” Keep him talking, Zoe commanded herself. Keep him talking.
“Enoch Lambert is my sire. He comes first, then Devlin or whoever is in charge of the hierarchy. Seventy-five years ago, Devlin wheedled his way into power and stole Enoch’s place. He only did what he had to in order to get it back, and now that he has it, he has no use for Devlin anymore.”
“Julian’s human, he’s no threat.”
Bryan laughed. “You’re right about that. But he’s still an annoyance. At first I was going to eliminate him. I know Mr. Lambert would be pleased. But now I’ve decided I’m going to let you do it.” Bryan shook her a little, and she gasped. If only she could slip out of his grasp and run.
Zoe shuddered at the scrape of Bryan’s fangs against her neck. Julian! Her mind screamed for him. Whatever had gone wrong, he wasn’t coming to her rescue, and she was out of options. “I’ll never hurt Julian. You know that, Bryan.”
“As a human you won’t. But as a vampire…that’s a different story. You’ll love it, Zoe. You’ll love the power and the freedom. I can do whatever I want, and there’s no limit to how far I can go. I can get away with anything.”
“Anything your sire allows, you mean. Is that the life you want, Bryan? Being someone else’s pawn? Lying to your friends, hurting them, feeding from them like you did with Tanya?”
“And you…more than once.”
Zoe cringed at the lilti
ng inflection in his voice. Had Bryan been a vampire when they—
He must have sensed her reaction because he shook her a little and laughed. “Oh, I know exactly what you’re thinking, and no, it never actually happened.”
“What do you mean, it never happened?”
“It was the first time I bit you. I was trying out my new abilities—biting someone gives a vampire greater influence over them. That’s when our powers of deception are highest. I made you think we had sex just to see what your reaction would be.”
Zoe suppressed the urge to kick him. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. How could he have played the two of them like this and used Zoe to hurt Tanya? Maybe Bryan truly was gone. Maybe he was completely beyond redemption at this point. “You might have made me think I enjoyed it.” She might not have a stake on hand, but maybe she could wound him with words.
His grip loosened just a bit at her jab. “Oh, very nice. Don’t worry. The next time, you will. I promise.”
Zoe gathered her strength just as Bryan pressed his fangs against her throat once again. She put all her anger and her fear into one explosion of movement and tore herself out of his deadly embrace.
“I suppose this just proves you can’t be trusted, Julian.” Enoch Lambert held his ground, obviously secure in the knowledge that a bullet beat Julian’s wooden stake for sheer destructive power. “It wasn’t enough that I let lovely Hester talk me out of killing you. It wasn’t enough that I refrained from torturing you just for sport or that I readily agreed to spare your human lover my wrath. Now you want to take away one of my own. I won’t tolerate that.”
“For what it’s worth, it wasn’t my idea.” Julian flicked his gaze over Lambert’s shoulder. Damn his human eyesight, he couldn’t see what was happening. Tanya had screamed once, a truncated sound that ended in an eerie silence. No doubt there’d be little left of her, even if Julian managed to fight off Lambert. He heard faint whispers coming from the vicinity of Bryan’s SUV as if he and Zoe were having a pleasant conversation. Could the fledgling vampire have already turned her? That had to be his intent.
“You’re guilty by association, Julian. You know that’s how I work.”
Julian nodded. “It would be too much to ask that you might have changed that policy. Am I really worth all the effort it will take to kill me, though? Why waste your time? You’ve said it yourself, I’m no longer meaningful to you. You have Anton’s power and my place in the hierarchy, and I don’t want it back, so what do you have to lose by letting me go? I’ll take my…girlfriend and disappear.”
“You had the chance to do that and what happened? You showed up here looking to cause trouble. Bryan is one of mine—young, but promising. He came to me tired of working for no sizable reward, tired of being at the mercy of those who had more than he had, and I saw something in him that reminded me of myself, back when I was human. I like the boy, and the only reason I haven’t ordered all of you killed is because he requested to play for a bit. He needs to cut his teeth, so to speak, and he’s been begging me to let him take you out.”
Lambert did step back then, though he kept the gun aimed strategically at the center of Julian’s chest. “So that’s what I’m going to do. In fact, I’m going to stand back and enjoy watching while he claims your little human for himself. Then they’ll both be loyal to me, and I imagine you’ll have very little fight left when she’s done with you.”
Pain lanced through Zoe’s neck where Bryan’s fangs had torn her skin. Warm blood oozed along her throat and trickled into the neckline of her shirt, but she ignored the sensation and concentrated on the scene taking place above her.
Just as she’d broken from Bryan’s grasp, Tanya appeared between them out of the shadows, brandishing her wooden stake dangerously close to Bryan’s chest. She held the weapon with surprising familiarity and wove back and forth like a character in some drunken kung fu movie. It would have been comical except for the look in her eyes. All the hurt and frustration of a dozen years of unrequited devotion showed there.
Tanya had always been the strong one of the group, but now she looked like she’d reached the end of all that strength. She was ready to break. The uncertainty in Bryan’s eyes told Zoe he wasn’t quite sure what to make of this new threat.
“I just staked my first vampire,” Tanya said, her voice high and thready. “And I liked it. Do you want to be next?”
Bryan laughed. He glanced at Zoe, who was now hunched by the front tire of his car. Did she only imagine she saw regret in his eyes?
“Look at me, Bryan. Over here.” Tanya drew his attention back to her. “I’m the one with the stake, and I’m not afraid to use it.” The splintered tip of the weapon wavered. She might not have been afraid to kill him, but she wasn’t completely cold-blooded. She looked terrified, but determined. Bryan held up his hands in a calming gesture.
“Okay. I believe you. You don’t want to hurt me, do you? I mean the two of you came here to save me, and I really appreciate the thought. I don’t need any help, though. Honestly, I like being a vampire, and if you two just walk away from this, I can guarantee you won’t have any trouble from me. I wanted to include you both in what I’ve accomplished. That was my plan all along. I never wanted to hurt either of you.”
“I believe you, Bry.” Tanya’s voice wavered but her grip on the stake remained rock steady. “I believe you, but I don’t really care what your excuses are. One way or another, you’re done being a vampire.”
Foolishly, Tanya lunged, and so did Bryan. Zoe cringed when their bodies collided.
Trembling, she wiped blood off her palm and tried to pick up the slippery potion vial from the ground. Her fingers shook so badly she was lucky she didn’t drop it and shatter it for good. The glass was cracked near the neck of the bottle, and the outside was slick with a few drops of the potion that had leaked out, but there was still about half of Hester’s concoction left inside.
She prayed it would be enough. It had to be enough.
The sounds of a scuffle escalated as Lambert nudged Julian forward with the barrel of the gun to watch the fray. Tanya and Bryan grappled with a wooden stake, and Zoe huddled on the ground, bleeding from a jagged wound beneath her jaw. Before Lambert could intercept, she threw a small object in Bryan’s direction. The potion bottle shattered at her former friend’s feet and, with his shiny black shoes, he ground it and the liquid left inside into powder against the cement.
Zoe rolled away from Lambert’s grip, but he followed. In moments, he had her in a choke hold, the gun now pointed at her temple. Julian froze mid-stride. He didn’t dare move now, even when a puff of red smoke rose from the broken vial and obscured everything around him.
Zoe had barely time to register what happened. After the potion bottle broke beneath Bryan’s shoe, she figured everything was over. They’d lost, utterly and completely. She sagged, surrendering to the wrenching pain of defeat and the terrible sting of the wound Bryan had inflicted on her neck. Tanya lay on the ground moaning. She’d hit her head on the fender of Bryan’s SUV when he’d cast her roughly aside after wrestling the wooden stake out of her grasp.
Blood red smoke obscured her vision and, once again, she was hauled to her feet and captured in the vice-like grip of undead muscles. She heard a faint click next to her ear and realized that the vampire who had her held a gun to her head. Judging by the rage in Julian’s eyes, this had to be the infamous Enoch Lambert.
“Is this the one, Julian? Your pretty little human.” Lambert’s cold breath brushed her ear as he clamped his arm tighter around her.
“You really want me, Enoch,” Julian countered. He held his hands up, palms out in a calming gesture, though he was clearly anything but calm. “Sire me, if that’s what you want. My loyalty must mean something to you, but let her go.”
“What a fool you are, Julian. We’ve passed the point where anything you do matters to me. All I want from you now is to see you suffer. I have everything I need and, believe me, I was willing to walk away,
but you just wouldn’t let it go. Now you get to watch her die, one way or another.”
In a swift movement, Lambert released Zoe and pushed her in Bryan’s direction. He had stalked up behind them, his eyes blazing and his breath rasping.
His breath…Zoe realized it instantly, but she feigned terror when Bryan once again wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Go ahead, son. Take her any way you want her, but if you feed, leave some for the rest of us to enjoy.” Lambert gave Julian a wry grin which morphed into a rictus of pain when Bryan plunged the wooden stake through his back and into his heart.
A second later, Enoch Lambert was dust.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Is Bryan going to be all right?” Zoe asked as Julian shut the door to her apartment. She hadn’t seemed the type to fret, but considering what they’d just been through, he figured she was entitled.
He crossed the room, put his hands on her shoulders, and began kneading the tense muscles there. The contact roused him, and when she leaned against him, the heat began to rise. “In time. He’s been a vampire for less than a year, so it shouldn’t take too long for him to get used to being human again.”
She nodded. “I hope so. I feel bad…like I did something purposely to hurt him.”
“He’ll forgive you. He saved your life, didn’t he?” Julian planted a kiss on the crown of her head. The chaste gesture did nothing to satisfy his growing urge to possess her, but he sensed she needed a moment. He wanted to comfort her, and he hated himself for wishing he could get her horizontal first.
When she looked up, her eyes were bright. “Have you forgiven Hester?”
Julian grimaced. Why did she have to bring up Hester now? Thoughts of the witch’s deception still irritated him, but he had to admit, grudgingly, that she’d done him a service. Had she not turned him human, he might be dead now, and if he wasn’t, he certainly wouldn’t be with Zoe. At the moment he could think of no other place he wanted to be. “I’m working on it. But there’s something else I’d rather work on right now.”
Uncross My Heart Page 22