Failure Analysis — The process of collecting and analyzing data to determine the cause of a failure.
The file slid in like melted butter, colliding with my ribcage and chipping off a shard of bone. Glancing down, I tried to make sense of the manicuring tool jutting out of my stomach or the searing ache that accompanied it.
Pain aside, I was still standing … for the moment at least.
“I-It’s silver,” Amber stammered, staring at the file as if expecting an explanation. “Why aren’t you burning?”
“Why indeed?” Tapping his chin with his index finger, Markus pantomimed confusion. “A vampire impervious to the effects of silver. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Rutherford?”
“It boggles the mind,” the glorified yes-man responded without an iota of conviction.
“You knew,” I croaked. Wobbling, I struggled to keep my legs under me. “You knew my parents, and you know what I am. You drugged Finn to attack us to make it look like vampires were … killing those who publicly opposed them.”
Closing the distance between us, Markus’ shoes scuffed across the floor. “That would wrap this all up in a pretty little bow, wouldn’t it? Grant you the closure your darkened heart needs? Unfortunately, answers to the questions truly worth knowing never come that easy.” Hand closing around the file, he twisted it, and yanked it out in one smooth motion. Blood filled my mouth, seeping between my teeth. Dots danced before my eyes. All while Markus held the file up to the light, turning it over to admire the thick sheen of garnet coating it. “In this case, the truth is bigger than you or I. CliffsNotes version? Your parents were narrow-sighted innovators, taken out by their competition. Rumor has it you’ve even met the mastermind behind it, although I’m sure you don’t remember. He has ways of remaining anonymous.” Turning on the ball of his foot, Markus balanced the nail file between his index fingers.
Hands over my stomach, tepid stickiness soaked through my shirt and coated my fingers. “Please … just tell me his name.”
Ignoring my plea, Markus strolled across the hangar, pausing to impose instruction on Rutherford. “Keep an eye on both of them. If either try to run, shoot them in the leg.”
“Gladly,” the misguided coroner grumbled, adjusting his grip on the gun.
Energy fading, I glanced to Carter in desperation. Despite the pain and odds rapidly stacking against us, an almost smile tugged at my lips. Still pretending to be unconscious, he had subtly maneuvered his phone out of his pocket. Propped up against his supposedly slack hand, the brilliant bastard was recording every minute of our ordeal.
There was hope. It was grisly and covered in blood, but it was there.
A heartening prospect to behold even as Markus seized Rau by the hair and swiped the bloody file across his lips. The vampire lord’s skin sizzled, but only for a moment before my blood shielded him from the burn. Rousing, Rau’s tongue flicked out to taste the offering.
“He’s waking him up. Why is he waking him up?” Amber yelped, trembling like an anxious Chihuahua.
Head rolling her way, I blinked through the haze of rapid blood loss. “Now you’ve got two vampires on your hands. Remember when I was the worst of your problems? Those were the fucking days, huh?”
Rau’s eyes snapped open, unveiling ruby orbs of hunger and hate. His movement was paranormal poetry, floating him up to a defensive crouch. Features more beast than man, his lip curled into a vicious snarl. “All this time, you’ve been right beside me, and I never knew the truth.”
Palms raised, I did my best to pump the brakes on the hydroplaning situation. “It’s me, Rau. I’m still the same person.” My appeal trailed off when Amber side-stepped to hide behind me. “Seriously? If you wanted me to fight for you, you probably shouldn’t have skewered me.”
Head slanted, Rau’s murderous glare traveled the length of me as if seeing me for the first time. “You’ve never been one of us. Yet you infiltrated our hive, made us trust you.”
“That’s right, I did.” Planting my feet firm, I owned my truth. “I started all of this looking for answers, and instead I found a place where I fit … where I was needed. I hadn’t felt that since my family died, and I don’t want to lose it now.”
“Shut up!” Jaws snapping, spittle flew from his bared teeth. “You know nothing of family. Family doesn’t lie. It doesn’t deceive. Anything that does is a threat, and threats must be eliminated.”
Every cell of my body screamed for me to prep for the fight. Ignoring the pull of those instincts, I retracted my fangs. I would allow myself no show of aggression against the man who had inadvertently become my mentor. “Remember what I said to you in the limo? That I’d lead until you found your footing? I’m fumbling, Rau. I need you to lead.”
“I can smell your blood now. How did you mask it before?” Rau asked, tongue teasing over the tip of one fang.
“One taste of her blood made you impervious to silver.” Markus skirted along the perimeter of the room, injecting his venom from a more secure distance. “Imagine what you could do if you drained her. There’s a chance you could feel the sun on your skin after all these centuries. Kill them. Kill them both, and taste freedoms you thought had forsaken you.”
Sniffing the air, Rau’s eyes rolled back with orgasmic delight. “I trusted you … confided in you.”
“You still can,” I interjected with as much fervor as I could muster in my battle to remain upright.
“No,” Rau rumbled, staring down at clawed hands that matched the silvery hue of a full moon on a cloudless night. “You don’t know the pull of what’s being offered. To feel the sunlight on my skin. To find sustenance from food, and not the pain and death of others …”
“One last kill, to change your life forever,” Markus pointed out. While the lift of his shoulder was casual, the intensity of his stare was fixed and demanding. “Embrace the hunger. Submit, one last time.”
As Rau prowled a slow circle around us, Rutherford mirrored his steps to keep us pinned in. “Talk to me, Markus. They usually go rabid dog by now. Why is he still up and talking?”
Markus beamed like a proud parent. “Because, he’s older and stronger than the rest. He’s fighting the pull. Rest assured, it will win in the end. It always does.”
Amber’s hands clamped onto my arms, clinging to me as she sobbed and snotted against my back. “He’s going to kill us. We’re going to die.”
Rolling his head like a boxer entering the ring, Rau shivered from head to foot. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Never did. But, I … am … famished.” A sickening knot twisted in my gut, Rau’s stare shifting from me, to Amber, and back again. “Eeny, meenie, miny, moe.”
“This is it. Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Amber hiccupped.
“Shut up!” I hissed over my shoulder. Planting my feet, I straightened my spine as much as the hot-poker of pain in my gut would allow and locked stares with Rau. “You don’t want her. She’s just another human. A meal and nothing more. You want to walk in the sun? I’m your best shot at that.”
“You’re like a daughter to me.” As I watched, his pupils dilated to black pits of desire. “She’s a question mark.”
“A daughter that lied and deceived you,” inserting the reminder, I tempted him by inching his way. “You said so yourself.”
Saliva dripping from his fangs, Rau prowled closer. As his nostrils twitched, he closed his eyes to relish my scent.
Giving up his act, Carter pushed himself up on one elbow. Video capturing every moment, his stare darted around the room for some way to intervene. Mentally, I willed him to lay back down and keep himself safely out of the equation. Not that I thought such a flight of fantasy would do any good.
So fixated was I on Rau that I didn’t notice Amber’s building tizzy until she shoved me aside and ripped off the mask. “It’s too much. I can’t take it. I want this over with!”
One look, and I knew she was about to do something monumentally idiotic. “Amber, whatever you’re thinking, don’t.�
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“If you’re going to kill me, just do it!” Digging the pointed edge of the mask into her wrist, she dragged it up her forearm. Skin splitting in a bloody gush, a whimper seeped from her clamped lips.
Rau jerked with a jolt, head snapping her way with lethal interest.
“What an enticing development,” Markus chuckled, dragging his tongue over his lower lip.
“Girl, you are a special kind of stupid.” Forcing the words through my teeth, I shoved two fingers into my closing wound, tearing the tissue back open. Breakers of pain licked through my chest, setting fire to every nerve. Raising my hand over my head, I let the blood stream down my arm, falling to the floor in heavy splats. “I’m the one you want, Rau. Take your aggression out on me, but don’t hurt her.”
Rau paused mid-prowl, watery red eyes swinging my way.
“I’m already dead,” I whispered softly. “My life ended on that attic floor with a train whistle blowing in the distance. Let this be my penance for deceiving you.”
“Now or never, Mihnea,” Markus boomed, drawing his gun from the back waistband of his trousers. “Choose one, or watch them both die.”
If Rau heard Markus’ threat, it bounced right off his slithering prowl.
Carter stayed hunkered to the ground, his phone captured every moment.
Hands falling to my sides, the weight of inevitability settled on my shoulders. “Prove your father wrong. You aren’t a demon. You’re not cursed.”
Despite his swollen and snarling features, Rau’s head tilted with something that resembled affection. “My dear child, if I hurt you, that’s exactly what I am.”
Before the scream could form on my lips, Rau moved in a dizzying blur. Pinning Amber’s body to his, his fangs sank into the pulse of her offered throat.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Breakthrough – An act or instance of removing or surpassing an obstruction or restriction.
Legs failing me in the same fashion I failed Amber, the ground rose to meet me. Whether it was blood-loss or the crushing weight of defeat that slammed my knees into the concrete, I couldn’t say. But there I knelt, flummoxed in a growing crimson puddle. Casting my stare to Amber’s discarded mask, there was no escaping the noisy slurps of Rau draining the life from her.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I professed, the words tumbling from my lips in a heartfelt confession. “It’s all my fault. I thought I could do this. I thought I was strong enough … driven enough.”
“Ugh, blubbering is so tiresome,” Markus groaned. Plucking the tranquilizer gun from Rutherford’s hidden holster, he aimed and delivered three darts into Rau’s back. A squeak snuck from my lips as the feeding vamp crumpled over the body of his lifeless prey. Tossing the gun aside, Markus let it clatter to the ground. Its sharp crack resonated around me in a taunting echo. Hitching up the legs of his pants to allow himself ease of movement, Markus squatted down beside me. His husky voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “You have to see this as the simplistic lesson in nature it is. This is a pure blood Nosferatu in their most real and brutal form. Look at what he’s capable of. He was created for savagery. This is his true nature, what he was meant to be. Pull back the glossed-up mask of the wolf in sheep’s clothing and marvel at the fanged beast beneath. This is why their kind has no place among civilized people.”
Exhausted from the tears and gore raining out of me, I wilted back on my heels and met his hate head-on. “Civilized? Is that what you call what happened here?”
“This was done out of necessity.” Markus shrugged. Purposely ignoring my aghast outrage, he jerked his chin in Amber’s depleted direction. “That, on the other hand, was done out of pleasure.”
“You drugged him,” I slurred, blinking hard to clear my blurring vision.
“True enough.” With a small chuckle, meant to appease me, Markus’ lips twisted to the side. “But the drug can’t bring out anything that doesn’t already live within him. He’s a pedigreed beast, thirsting for carnage. While you,” catching a lock of my hair, he twisted it around his finger and gave it a tug, “you’re a half-breed mutt that doesn’t fit in their world or ours. It’s good for you to see him like this—torn away from the illusion he cocooned himself in—to spare you from dying convinced of the lie.” Standing, he shook out his cramping legs and gave the briefest nod to Rutherford.
The safety of a gun was released with a metallic clink in my ear and cold steal kissed my temple.
“And, Vincenza,” Markus affirmed, Rutherford taking the position of executioner behind me, “you are going to die.”
“That statement might be a tad premature.” Pushing off one elbow, Carter, the forgotten about cast-off, lifted from the ground to assume a bold, wide-legged stance. Out in front of him, he held up his phone for all to see. “Smile, gentlemen, the world is watching.”
Face noticeably absent of even a flicker of emotion, Markus hid his gun behind his back and gestured for Rutherford to do the same. Cheeks blooming the deep scarlet of repressed rage, Rutherford begrudgingly followed suit.
Phone balanced between his index fingers and thumbs, Carter performed a slow and steady side-step in my direction. “I’m guessing you boys have a lot of questions right now. Am I telling the truth? If so, how long has the camera been on? Is this the moment you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar? And, most importantly, how can you take Vinx and I out with the world watching? Let me give you a hint, the answer to that last one is … you can’t. You lay one hand on us, and your lives and careers are over.”
A lesser man may have buckled under the weight of the heavy scrutiny forced upon him. Not Markus. A master of political manipulation, he didn’t risk so much as a hesitation before launching into an oil-slick smooth spin. Tucking his gun into the back of his belt, he raised his hands palms out. Feigning sincerity with the expertise of a trained performer, he beseeched Carter along with any viewers watching. “You have done a service to your country by recording the truth. Rau Mihnea, public face of the Nosferatu Presumption of Innocence Bill, killed a woman. We have no doubt, had we not sedated him, he would have turned on the rest of us. As horrific as this tragedy is, we can take comfort knowing that the sheet has been torn and the truth revealed. Today’s votes shouldn’t matter. Not when the facts on this issue have been so carefully hidden. The executive branch needs to intervene, emergency action must be taken to veto this bill. The safety of the good citizens of the United States is at stake.”
Heel bumping my leg, Carter took a protective stance in front of my huddled form. “You injected Rau with something that made him lose control. We all saw it. How do you plan to weave that into this story you’re scripting?”
Jerking as if slapped, Markus blinked Carter’s way in disbelief. “You watched that poor girl die in a rough and brutal manner no human deserves. How can you possibly rationalize that as anything other than the deplorable actions of a vicious animal?”
“What about the other body on the ground? I’m fairly certain any vampire worth their salt would find this level of waste Plasma Abuse. Plus, they have no need for guns, and District Attorney Berry is sporting a fatal bullet wound. Care to discuss that, Councilman?” Carter swiveled his phone to capture a shot of Berry slumped on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
“You’re stunned by what’s transpired.” Markus clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his practiced expression a picture of compassion. “Anyone would be. Hand me the phone, son. We’ll call the authorities, and get you and your friend the medical attention you deserve.” Reaching for the phone, his stare flashed with murderous intent.
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll hold on to it,” Carter countered. Shifting the device into his left hand, he extended the other to me. When I continued to sit slack and motionless, he nudged me with his foot. “Vinx, can you stand?”
Hatred flared Rutherford’s nostrils. “This is bullshit. We did you a favor tonight, you ungrateful twat!”
Ever the
pillar of serenity, Markus raised one finger to steady him. “Easy, my friend. After what these young people witnessed, it only makes sense for them to be confused and uneasy. Given time to reflect, they will have no choice but to accept the reality of this situation.”
“That sounded an awful lot like a threat.” Bending sideways, Carter’s hand encircled my wrist. He ducked his head and draped my arm around his shoulders. “Vincenza, I need you to come with me. Markus and his guard dog won’t do anything to stop us from walking right out of here. Will you, boys? Not so long as this camera is rolling.”
Battling to keep his rage at an impassive neutral, the tendons of Markus’ neck bulged. “I doubt that the police will look favorably on you fleeing the scene of a crime. Why don’t you stay here, and we’ll all alert the authorities together?”
“You’ve got the County Coroner on a leash. I’m not deluded enough to believe that’s where you’re influence ends.” Breath warming my cheek, Carter murmured against my hair, “Lean on me as much as you need, but I need you to get up.”
Forcing one foot under me, I eased a small portion of my weight onto it. The traitorous limb collapsed, driving my knee into the floor with a sharp bark of pain. Call it guilt, or affection, but as I fought for the strength to try again, something dragged my blurring stare back to Rau. Once a regal prince of the media. Now, prostrated and covered in gore.
“I can’t leave him,” I croaked. “He needs me.”
As Carter struggled to hold the phone steady, he hoisted me up on wobbling legs. “There’s nothing we can do for him now. The camera is our key out of here. He would want you to take it.”
“Rau is a proven killer.” Clapping his hands as if in prayer, Markus’ predatory glare searched for a weak point to strike. “Thanks to you, the world has seen that. If you even tried to leave with him, you would be thrust into a nationwide man-hunt. Still,” his shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug that sharply contradicted the waves of malicious desire wafting off of him, “if you’d like to hand over the phone, you could drag him out of here. I find him far too dangerous to throw myself in front of if he was attempting to leave. After all, I am a family man.”
Veiled (Veiled Book 1) Page 20