"Right," Kira replied, "that's what the other Punisher told me, back in Aldrich's dungeon. What do two angels have to do with it?"
"Well, within all of this madness, two of the pure angels fell in love."
"It always comes down to a love story," Luke said quietly from the back seat.
"It does," her mom said, smiling sadly into the rearview mirror before turning back to the road, "and like most love stories, this one is star-crossed. The woman had a best friend, a true brother, who had fallen with Lucifer, turning into an evil, mangled original vampire. And the man had a true sister who was killed by his love's brother."
"Jeez, talk about bad luck," Kira muttered under her breath. Why did every story seem to have a sad ending these days?
"But still, the two of them fell in love, and when they realized that the darkness was coming for them, that they would be unable to hold on much longer, an idea came—a way to save each other. They would ask God to strip their divinity, to make them human, so they could live together on earth for however many years a short mortal life allowed. God agreed.
"And when the day came, they held hands, waiting for their powers to be stripped. As the sun leaked from their bodies, however, a thought came to each of them. The woman, still believing her brother was alive somewhere, wished for the power to save him. And the man, wanting more than anything to avenge his sister, wished for the power to end that vampire's life.
"And when God's eternal fire left their bodies, two different people emerged. A Protector and a Punisher. Two races, two flames, and two paths. Knowing what their love would bring, what a child might mean, they went different ways, changing more original angels to their respective causes. And though their love remained strong until they died, the two never saw each other again."
"That is the worst bedtime story ever," Luke said, sighing and leaning back against his seat.
"Tell me about it," her mother remarked, "I used to have nightmares as a child, not dreams."
"But how does it help us?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," her mother said softly.
But Kira had an idea. It was about making a choice. Keep her Punisher powers to kill Aldrich, avenging both her parents and Tristan. Or keep her Protector powers to stay with Luke.
A choice.
Aldrich or Luke.
Her parents or Luke.
Tristan or Luke.
She rolled over, searching the skyline. Smoke. Black clouds still billowed into the air above the trees. All it did was remind her that time was running out. That she needed to choose.
Or a lot more than a forest would burn.
The whole world would crumble.
Chapter Twelve
"There's one thing I don't quite understand," Luke said. The two of them were driving to his house to meet with Tristan and Pavia.
The flight home from West Virginia had been miserable. Kira feigned sleep for most of the ride, unable to sort through her tumultuous thoughts.
Luke picked up his car from the airport parking lot and dropped her mother off at home. Kira wanted to run inside, to hug her little sister and give her father a kiss, but she was supposed to be in Sonnyville, happy and safe. And her facial expression would have given her away, would have made her father know something was wrong. Besides, they had work to do.
There was always more work to do. And the more they drove, the more she worried that Luke saw it too—saw the indecision etched into her features.
Silence filled the car. Luke wanted to read her mind. And Kira, more than anything, wanted to hide that there was still a choice to make, still an unexpected barrier between their futures together.
"What?" Kira asked. Luke had said something, but she had been too deep into her own head to hear him.
"I said, there's one thing I don't quite understand."
"Only one? I'm impressed," Kira mocked, covering up her worry with a smirk.
"Ha. Ha," he drawled. "I meant one thing about the fight. I don't understand how the vampires knew we were there."
"Hm." Kira shrugged, unbuckling her seatbelt as Luke's house came into view.
"Don't you think it's strange? That place was totally deserted for years and then on the one day that we're there, a whole troop of vampires is too?"
"Yeah, it's weird," Kira said, pausing while they both stepped out of the car, "but I've seen weirder. One of them probably saw us in the airport or on the road and just followed the car."
"I guess," Luke said, but he squinted one eye, pursing his lips in dissatisfaction.
"Is that music?" Kira asked, straining her ears. It sounded like a violin was playing softly inside of Luke's home. The sound grew as they approached the front door. A soft peel of laughter joined it, followed by a deep muffled voice.
Luke unlocked the door.
Kira's eyebrows drew together. A sharp inhale sucked air into her suddenly burning lungs and an invisible punch knocked her gut, making her stumble backward on unsteady feet.
Tristan and Pavia stood arm in arm in the center of the living room—one hand around her hip, another around his neck, two joined together. He twirled her in a circle. She laughed at her misstep and he smiled, whispering something into her ear. The lights were dimmed. The music romantic. And Kira knew Pavia was anything but clumsy. The first memory Pavia had shared with Kira was of her dancing before a crowd—graceful and smooth.
A brown eye caught Kira's.
Tristan released Pavia, letting her go and stepping a foot backward, away from the vampire's body. He shook his head, confused, looking between the two girls, fighting with two different versions of himself.
Pavia spun, her cheeks puffing into a grin. "Welcome home. Tristan was just showing me how to dance." She placed a hand on his forearm. "And he's a wonderful teacher."
"Funny, I thought you already knew how," Kira replied, hating the jealousy dripping from her voice. This was totally allowed. She had given Tristan up. But even so, the thought of someone else touching him ripped at her heart.
"Not the waltz, silly," Pavia said and stepped back, giggling and sitting on the couch. Maybe Kira was reading too much into the situation.
"How was your visit?" Tristan asked, letting the words come out slowly, carefully, as if he wasn't sure what, if any, line had been crossed.
Kira walked farther into the room, taking the only open seat next to Pavia so both boys had to settle into armchairs. She didn't look at Luke. "Eventful. Any word from your friends?"
"Alessandro should be calling with an update soon, sometime tonight."
Alessandro? Kira silently questioned, before remembering him as Hawk-Nose, the one trying to infiltrate Aldrich's inner-circle.
"We ran into some vampires while we were there," Luke interrupted. "I was just telling Kira how odd it seemed to me."
Pavia shrugged, blowing the ever-straying lock of hair from her forehead, "Maybe. Someone probably just saw you at the airport. Unless you think they followed you all the way from Charleston?"
"No." Luke sighed, letting the word drag out. "If they followed us here from Sonnyville, they probably wouldn't have waited so long to strike."
"What if they followed her mom?"
Kira perked up.
"How would they have known where she was going? It's not like there were tickets they could track. She used the conduit airplane."
"What if they were already listening?" Kira whispered.
"What?" Luke asked. Kira met his eyes, ignoring the quick glance he made between her body and Tristan's.
"What if they were already listening to the conduits? Spying on Sonnyville? The airport is just outside the wall, they could have been watching it." Kira rubbed her temples. A thought was tugging at her, irking her. Something didn’t add up.
"But why?" Luke asked.
And suddenly it hit Kira, ramming into her like a truck.
"Of course," she said, squinting and rubbing at her temples. "Why didn’t I see it before?"
"What?" Luke and Pavia a
sked in unison. They didn’t see it yet.
"Sonnyville. That's the plan. That's always been the plan." Kira stood and started pacing. "Aldrich, he's going to attack Sonnyville. He knows I won’t be able to hideout while all of those people are being attacked. He knows I'll go, knows I'll want to fight him—"
"But you can't, Kira," Luke said, standing too.
"But I have to," Kira said. A choice. It was always about making a choice.
"There are too many conduits—"
"I know."
Luke was right. There were too many conduits. Too many sweetly scented veins to drag her down, to entice her, to push her over the edge. If she went there, used her powers there, she would fall. No questions. That was an absolute. And even more absolute? Conduits would die.
"But I can't let him win."
A choice.
"Hold up," Pavia interjected. "You're saying Aldrich is going to attack Sonnyville? It's suicide."
"He doesn't care anymore," Kira said. "All he cares about is finishing what he started back in England. Turning me. Ending the conduits. God, why didn’t I see it before?"
Why didn't she see it when her mother was attacked? Why didn’t she realize Sonnyville was always the end goal—always the battleground?
"I need to call Alessandro. Maybe he can confirm it." Pavia stood, retreating to the kitchen.
"I need to call the council. I have to warn them." Luke followed, turning left for the stairs rather than right.
Kira fell back onto the couch, chiding herself. Idiot. It was so obvious. He knew what he had been doing all along. Attacking her mother. Attacking her home. Practically begging her to choose vengeance, to meet him for a final fight. He was never trying to kill her, just to goad her, because he did know. Ever since he had escaped, Aldrich had known that he had been right all along—that she would fall and she would bring the rest of the conduits down with her.
Unless a choice was really all it took. Keep her Punisher powers to kill him, or let them go for the chance at something more.
"Kira?"
She blinked, turning slightly to look at Tristan. What a difference a couple of days could make. His soft chocolate eyes did nothing to lessen her anxiety, but his presence did. The familiarity helped set her mind at ease.
"Yeah, Tristan?"
He stood up, walking over to sit on the edge of the couch, his leg a somehow distant one inch from hers.
"I know I am not the man you remember, but I would still like to help. I can see that you are uneasy, that something more than what's been spoken is troubling you."
"Am I that obvious?" She laughed under her breath.
He shrugged, unsure of how to respond.
Kira took his hand in her lap, holding it between both of hers. "You know what's funny? I mean, not really funny, but strange. You used to be my person, the one who could help me escape when the conduit life seemed overwhelming or my future seemed hopeless. Somehow, you'd distract me enough to make it disappear for a while, to make me feel like a normal teenage girl."
"Maybe I still can," he said, bringing his other hands over hers, so four sets of fingers interlaced.
How? Kira wanted to ask. The old Tristan would talk of their lives together. The places they would travel, the things they would see, the memories they would create. He always avoided serious things, like getting married, since he wasn't legally a person, or having children, since it wasn't possible. But somehow, he managed to talk of the future without making her think of those things. He would make it seem glamorous and hopeful, instead of the truth—that she was completely doomed.
"I'll start by telling you that no matter what happens, you still saved me. I have a feeling that you've saved me once before, during a time I don't remember, but even in the few days that I do, I feel as though I need to thank you."
"No, you don—"
"I do," he interrupted, "you brought me back to life. Literally. You gave me a second chance to be a good person, to get it right. But also in another way. You brought me home, and even though it feels like my parents and brother were alive only a week ago, being here has helped me accept that they are gone."
Gone. They are gone. Why was that concept so difficult to comprehend? To believe?
"Do you miss them?" she asked. This was a new Tristan, one who honored his past rather than kept it from her. In a way, Kira felt like she was getting to know him for the first time, or at least getting to know a side of himself that he had always kept hidden from everyone, even her.
"Yes and no," he said, leaning back in his seat, eyes glazing over. "My mother. I miss her the most. The truly unconditional love she honored me with, it was a rare thing. My father and I, my brother and I—we never really understood each other. I miss them, of course, but not the way you miss a true friend, how losing them feels like losing a part of yourself. I miss them because they were familiar, they were my blood, and there's always something to be said about that. But they were never part of my soul."
"But your mother was?"
"She was everything to me," he said softly, pausing, "and yet, I feel as though another piece of me is missing too, something I don't know how to identify." He looked up at her through the dark black lashes framing his eyes and the slightly shaggy hair that fell down over his forehead. Kira's heart sped.
He was begging her—begging her to tell him what the missing part was. But she couldn't it because Kira didn’t know. She didn’t know if part of him was dying from missing her, or if part of him was still lost somewhere in the memory of being a vampire. Either way, it would soon be gone, spirited away by Pavia's powers, and he would feel whole again. At least she hoped he would.
"Can I ask you something, Tristan?"
He nodded.
"If you could choose between vengeance and love, what would you pick?"
"Love," he answered quickly.
"Even if it was to avenge your mother? Even then?"
He laughed. "Especially then."
"How are you so sure?"
"All my mother ever wanted was for me to marry, to find a wife, to love. To throw that away would be to disgrace her memory, not to honor it. But perhaps this is a question I should be asking you?" He raised his eyebrows, trying to peer through her, right into the thoughts she was trying to shield. "I didn’t quite follow the three of you before, but this man Aldrich, what did he do to you?"
"He killed my mother…" Kira sighed. He killed you, she continued in her thoughts. He took away Tristan's soul. He was the catalyst that broke them apart. He was the joker, dancing the dream of her mother around, dangling it like a noose made specially for her. He was the dark hole wedged inside of her heart.
"What do you think she would want for you?" Tristan asked.
Kira thought back to the few memories she had from Pavia. The warm home, the warm thoughts, the big dreams. She knew what her mother would want—for love to prevail. Kira had known what her parents had been fighting for all along—the chance to be happy, the hope that love might just win out in the end.
But another memory pulled at her. Aldrich. Back in England, he had interrupted her in the garden. A dreamer, that's what he called Tristan. But not her. He had named her a realist, someone who worked in facts and not wishes, who lived in the real world instead of the happy fantasy.
Kira didn’t know what she was.
There were facts—Aldrich was a bad man, he was attacking Sonnyville, he had to be stopped, Kira could kill him, could choose her Punisher side, but in doing so would lose Luke forever.
Then there were dreams—Tristan finding peace with himself, Kira feeling free of the weight of the world resting on her shoulders, saving vampires who want to be saved, falling in love, knowing the sun would stay with her forever, knowing the killing would finally stop.
A choice.
"Kira."
She looked up toward the staircase where Luke was standing, his eyes glued to Tristan's hands in her lap. His lids closed slowly, painfully, and then he was lookin
g at her, silently pushing any jealousy to the back of his mind.
"I spoke with your grandfather," he said, voice strained. Kira slipped her fingers from Tristan's. He slowly followed suit, hesitating before cutting contact completely.
"What'd he say?"
Luke walked down the stairs before collapsing into his empty chair. "It's not looking great in Sonnyville. The Punishers are still petitioning to have you killed—they think our running away just proved that they had been right. He said they've been noticing an increased vampire presence, and they've turned the UV wall around the town up to a stronger setting. And feelings about you within the town are mixed, and it's hard to tell which side has more support. Basically, gloom and doom as per usual."
"I'm starting to get tired of that," Kira joked.
"Me too."
Kira clicked her tongue, thinking. "Did you tell him about the attack? About our suspicions?"
Luke nodded. She paused, taking a deep breath.
"Did you tell him about me?"
Luke met her eyes, the fire-flaked emerald green pierced through her, and shook his head.
"Are they prepared to fight?"
"As prepared as can be, but he seemed doubtful. If there are as many vampires as we're afraid of, I don't see how the Protectors can fight without any help. The presence of the Punishers will ease the pressure a little, but having me there to strategize and having Pavia's vampires could mean the difference between victory and defeat."
Kira knew where this was going. Me. He had said me—not us. She stood up, pointing at him forcefully and shaking her head. "No way. You are not leaving me behind."
The Complete Midnight Fire Series Page 72