by L. J. Smith
Daphne was crying steadily now. Before she could say anything, Rashel went on. “Daphne, any minute now they could realize that. Someone’s bound to check the cellar before midnight. Every second we stand here could make the difference. Please, please, don’t fight me anymore.”
Daphne opened her mouth, then shut it. Her eyes were desolate. “Please try to take care of yourself,” she whispered. She let go of Rashel’s shoulders and hugged her hard. “We all know you’re doing it for us. I’m proud to be your friend.”
Then she turned and ran, herding the others toward the boats.
A moment later she threw Rashel two pieces of line. Rashel tied up Quinn first, then the werewolf.
“Six minutes,” she said to Daphne. Daphne nodded, trying not to cry.
Rashel wouldn’t say goodbye. She hated that. Even though she knew perfectly well that she was never going to see Daphne again.
Without looking back, she loped up the hiking trail.
CHAPTER 14
The first person Rashel met in the mansion was Ivan.
It was sheer dumb luck, the same luck that had helped keep her alive so far tonight. She slipped in the back door, the way she and the girls had gone out. Standing in the huge silent kitchen, she listened for an instant to the music that was still blasting from the inner house.
Then she swiveled to check the cellar—and met Ivan the Terrible running up the stairs.
He had clearly just discovered that his twenty-four valuable slave girls were missing. His blond hair was flying, his eyes were wide with alarm, his mouth was twisted. He had the taser in one hand and a bunch of plastic handcuffs—the kind police use on rioters—in the other.
When Rashel suddenly appeared on the stairway, his eyes flew open even wider. His mouth opened in astonishment—and then Rashel’s foot impacted with his forehead. The snap kick knocked him backward, and he tumbled down the stairs to hit the wooden door below.
Rashel leaped after him, making it to the bottom only a second after he did. But he was already out.
“What are these? Were you supposed to take some girls up?” She kicked at the plastic handcuffs. Ivan the Unconscious didn’t answer.
She glanced at her watch. Only a quarter to nine. Maybe he’d been taking the girls to get washed or something. It seemed too early to start the feast.
Running noiselessly back up the stairs, she quietly closed the door. Now she had to follow the music. She needed to see where the vampires were, how they were situated, how she could best get at them. She wondered where Lily was.
The kitchen opened into a grand dining room with an enormous built-in sideboard. It had undoubtedly been made to accommodate whole suckling pigs or something, but Rashel had a dreadful vision of a girl lying on that coffinlike mahogany shelf, hands tied behind her, while vampire after vampire stopped by to have a snack.
She pushed the idea out of her mind and moved silently across the floorboards.
The dining room led to a hall, and it was from the end of the hallway that music was coming. Rashel slipped into the dimly lit hall like a shadow, moving closer and closer to the doors there. The last door was the only one that showed light.
That one, she thought.
Before she could get near it, a figure blocked the light. Instantly Rashel darted through the nearest doorway.
She held her breath, standing in the darkened room, watching the hall. If only one or two vampires came out, she could pick them off.
But nobody came out and she realized it must have just been someone passing in front of the light. At the same moment she realized that the music was very loud.
This wasn’t another room—it was the same room. She was in one gigantic double parlor, with a huge wooden screen breaking it up into two separate spaces. The screen was solid, but carved into a lacy pattern that let flickering light through.
Rashel thrust her knife in her waistband, then crept to the screen and applied her eye.
A spacious room, very masculine, paneled like the dining room in mahogany and floored in cherry parquet. Glass brick windows—opaque. All Rashel’s worry about somebody looking out had been for nothing. A fire burned in a massive fireplace, the light bringing out the ruddy tones in the wood. The whole room looked red and secret.
And there they were. The vampires for the bloodfeast.
Seven of the most powerful made vampires in the world, Fayth had said. Rashel counted heads swiftly. Yes, seven. No Lily.
“You boys don’t look that scary,” she murmured.
That was one thing about made vampires. Unlike the lamia, who could stop aging—or start again—whenever they wanted, made vampires were stuck. And since the process of turning a human body into a vampire body was incredibly difficult, only a young human could survive it.
Try to turn somebody over twenty into a vampire and they would burn out. Fry. Die.
The result was that all made vampires were stuck as teenagers.
What Rashel was looking at could have been the cast for some new TV soap about friends. Seven teenage guys, different sizes, different colors, but all Hollywood handsome, and all dressed to kill. They could have been talking and laughing about a fishing trip or a school dance… except for their eyes.
That was what gave them away, Rashel thought. The eyes showed a depth no high school guy could ever have. An experience, an intelligence… and a coldness.
Some of these teenagers were undoubtedly hundreds of years old, maybe thousands. All of them were absolutely deadly.
Or else they wouldn’t be here. They each expected to kill three innocent girls starting at midnight.
These thoughts flashed through Rashel’s mind in a matter of seconds. She had already decided on the best way to plunge into the room and start the attack. But one thing kept her from doing it.
There were only seven vampires. And the eighth was the one she wanted. The client. The one who’d hired Quinn and set up the feast.
Maybe it was one of these. Maybe that tall one with the dark skin and the look of authority. Or the silvery blond with the odd smile….
No. Nobody really looks like a host. I think it’s the one who’s still missing.
But maybe she couldn’t afford to wait. They might hear the powerboats leaving over the steady pounding of the music. Maybe she should just…
Something grabbed her from behind.
This time she had no warning. And she wasn’t surprised anymore. Her opinion of herself as a warrior had plummeted.
She intended to fight, though. She went limp to loosen the grip, then reached between her own legs to grab her attacker’s ankle. A jerk up would throw him off balance….
Don’t do it. I don’t want to have to stun you, but I will.
Quinn.
She recognized the mental voice, and the hand clamped across her mouth. And both the telepathy and the skin contact were having an effect on her.
It wasn’t like before; no lightning bolts, no explosions. But she was overwhelmed with a sense of Quinn. She seemed to feel his mind—and the feeling was one of drowning in dark chaos. A storm that seemed just as likely to kill Quinn as anyone else.
He lifted her cleanly and backed out of the room with her, into the hall, then up a flight of stairs. Rashel didn’t fight. She tried to clear her head and wait for an opportunity.
By the time he’d pulled her into an upstairs room and shut the door, she realized that there wasn’t going to be an opportunity.
He was just too strong, and he could stun her telepathically the instant she moved to get away. The tables had turned. There was nothing to do now but hope that she could face death as calmly as he had. At least, she thought, it would put a stop to her confusion.
He let go of her and she slowly turned to look at him.
What she saw sent chills between her shoulder blades. His eyes were as dark and chaotic as the clouds she’d sensed in his mind. It was scarier than the cold hunger she’d seen in the eyes of the seven guys downstairs.
; Then he smiled.
A smile that shed rainbows. Rashel pressed her back against the wall and tried to brace herself.
“Give me the knife.”
She simply looked at him. He pulled it out of her waistband and tossed it on the bed.
“I don’t like being knocked out,” he said. “I don’t know why, but something about it really bothers me.”
“Quinn, just get it over with.”
“And it took me a while to get myself untied. Every time I meet you, I seem to end up hog-tied and unconscious. It’s getting monotonous.”
“Quinn… you’re a vampire. I’m a vampire hunter. Do what you have to.”
“We’re also always threatening each other. Have you noticed that? Of course, everything we keep saying is true. It is kill or be killed. And you’ve killed a lot of my people, Rashel the Cat.”
“And you’ve killed a lot of mine, John Quinn.”
He glanced away, looking into a middle distance. His pupils were enormous. “Less than you might think, actually. I don’t usually kill to feed. But, yes, I’ve done enough. I said before, I know what you think of me.”
Rashel said nothing. She was frightened and confused and had been under strain for quite a long time. She felt that at any moment she could snap.
“We belong to two different races, races that hate each other. There’s no way to get around that.” He turned his dark eyes back on her and gave her a brilliant smile. “Unless, of course, we change it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to make you a vampire.”
Something inside Rashel seemed to give way and fall. She felt as if her legs might collapse.
He couldn’t mean it, he couldn’t be serious. But he was. She could tell. There was a kind of surface serenity pasted over the dark roiling clouds in his eyes.
So this was how he’d solved an unsolvable problem. He had snapped.
Rashel whispered, “You know you can’t do that.”
“I know I can do that. It’s very simple, actually—all we have to do is exchange blood. And it’s the only way.” He took hold of her arms just above the elbow. “Don’t you understand? As long as you’re human, Night World law says you have to die if I love you.”
Rashel stood stricken.
Quinn had stopped short, as if he were startled himself by what he’d said. Then he gave an odd laugh and shook his head. “If I love you,” he repeated. “And that’s the problem, of course. I do love you.”
Rashel leaned against the wall for support. She couldn’t think anymore. She couldn’t even breathe properly. And somewhere deep inside her there was a trembling that wouldn’t stop.
“I’ve loved you from that first night, Rashel the Cat. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was true.” He was still gripping her tightly by the arms, leaning close to her, but his eyes were distant, lost in the past.
“I’d never met a human like you,” he said softly, as if remembering. “You were strong, you weren’t weak and pathetic. You weren’t looking for your own destruction. But you were going to let me go. Strength and compassion. And… honor. Of course I loved you.” His dark eyes focused again. He looked at her sharply. “I’d have been crazy not to.”
Falling into darkness… Rashel had a terrifying desire to simply collapse in his arms. Give in. He was so strangely beautiful, and the power of his personality was overwhelming.
And of course she loved him, too.
That was suddenly excruciatingly clear. Undeniable. From the beginning he had struck a chord in her that no one else had ever touched. He was so much like her—a hunter, a fighter. But he had honor, too. However he might try to deny it or get around it, deep inside him there was still honor.
And like her, he knew the dark side of life, the pain, the violence. They had both seen—and done—things that normal people wouldn’t understand.
She was supposed to hate him… but from the beginning she’d seen herself in him. She had felt the bond, the connection between them….
Rashel shook her head. “No!” She had to stop thinking these things. She would not surrender to the darkness.
“You can’t stop me, you know,” Quinn said softly. “That ought to make things easier for you. You don’t even have to make a decision. It’s all my fault. I’m very, very bad, and I’m going to make you a vampire.”
Somehow that gave Rashel her voice back. “How can you do that—to someone you love?” she spat.
“Because I don’t want you dead! Because as long as you’re human, you’re going to get yourself killed!” He put his face close to hers, their foreheads almost touching. “I will not let you kill yourself,” he said through his teeth.
“If you make me a vampire, I will kill myself,” Rashel said.
Her mind had cleared. However much she wanted to give in, however enticing the darkness might be, it all disappeared when she thought of how it would end. She would be a vampire. She’d be driven by bloodlust to do things that would horrify her right now. And she’d undoubtedly find excuses for doing them. She would become a monster.
Quinn was looking shaken. She’d scared him, she could see it in his eyes.
“You’ll feel differently once it’s done,” he said.
“No. Listen to me, Quinn.” She kept her eyes on his, looking deep, trying to let him see the truth of what she was saying. “If you make me a vampire, the moment I wake up I’ll stab myself with my own knife. Do you think I’m not brave enough?”
“You’re too brave; that’s your problem.” He was faltering. The surface serenity was breaking up. But that wasn’t really helpful, Rashel realized, because underneath it was an agony of desperate confusion. Quinn really couldn’t see any other solution. Rashel couldn’t see any herself—except that she didn’t really expect to survive tonight.
Quinn’s face hardened, and she could see him pushing away doubts. “You’ll get used to it,” he said harshly, his voice grating. “You’ll see. Let’s start now,” he added.
And then he bit her.
He was so fast. Unbelievably fast. He caught her jaw and tilted her head back and to the side—not roughly but with an irresistible control and precision. Then before Rashel had time to scream, she felt a hot sting. She felt teeth, vampire teeth, extended to an impossible delicacy and sharpness, pierce her flesh.
This is it. This is death.
Panic flooded her. But it wasn’t death, of course—not yet. She wouldn’t even be changed into a vampire by a single exchange of blood. No, instead it would be slow torture… days of agony… pain….
She kept waiting for the pain.
Instead she felt a strange warmth and languor. Was he actually drinking her blood? All she could sense was Quinn’s mouth nuzzling at her neck, his arms around her tightly. And…
His mind.
It happened all at once. In a sudden silent explosion, white light engulfed her. It burst around her. She was floating in it. Quinn was floating in it. It was shining around them and through them, and she could feel a connection with Quinn that made their last connection seem like a faulty telephone line.
She knew him. She could see him, his soul, whatever you wanted to call it, whatever it was that made him John Quinn. They seemed to be floating together in some other space, in a naked white light that revealed everything and mercilessly lit up all the most secret places.
And if anyone had asked her, Rashel would have said that would be horrible, and she would have run for her life to get away from it.
But it wasn’t horrible. She could see dreadful dark bits in Quinn’s mind, and dreadful dark bits in hers. Tangled, thorny, scary parts, full of anger and hate. But there were so many other parts—some of them almost unused—that were beautiful and strong and whole. There was so much potential. Rainbow places that were aching to grow. Other parts that seemed to quiver with light, desperate to be awakened.
We ask so little of ourselves, Rashel thought in wonder. If everybody’s like this—we stunt ou
rselves so badly. We could be so much more….
I don’t want you to be more. You’re amazing enough the way you are.
It was Quinn. Not even his voice, just—Quinn. His thoughts. And Rashel knew her thoughts flowed to him without her even making an effort.
You know what I mean. Isn’t this strange? Does this always happen with vampires?
Nothing like this has ever happened to me in my life, Quinn said.
What he felt was even more, and Rashel could sense it directly, in a dizzying sweet wave. There was an understanding between them that ran deeper than any words could convey.
Whatever was happening to them, however they had gotten to this place, one thing was obvious. Under the white light that revealed their inner selves, it was clear that small differences like being vampire or human didn’t matter. They were both just people. John Quinn and Rashel Jordan. People who were stumbling through life trying to deal with the hurt.
Because there was hurt. There was pain in the landscape of Quinn’s mind. Rashel sensed it without words or even images; she could feel the feelings that had scarred Quinn.
Your father did something—he killed Dove? Oh, John. Oh, John, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.
Rainbow lights shimmered when she called him John. It was the part of him that he had repressed the most ruthlessly. The part that she could almost feel growing in her presence.
No wonder you hated humans. After everything you’d been through, to have your own father want you dead…
And no wonder you hated vampires. They killed someone close to you—your mother? And you were so young. I’m… sorry. He wasn’t as easy with words as she was, but here they didn’t need words. She could sense his sorrow, his shame, and his fierce protectiveness. And she could sense the emotion behind his next question. Who did it?
I don’t know. I’ll probably never know. Rashel didn’t want to pursue it. She didn’t want to feed the dark side of Quinn; she wanted to see more of the shimmering light. She wanted to make the light grow until the dark disappeared.