by Kristie Cook
Recognizing Alys from when we converted her in Charlotte, South Carolina, my team relaxed.
“We need to get Sheree inside,” Char said after a quick greeting to Alys, and I nodded.
Sonya and Jax lifted Sheree and carried her toward the building with Blossom and Dorian following after. Heather and the other norms had already gone inside. I stared after them, pushing my hands through my hair and wondering what the hell just happened. James and Carlie. Lesley. Daemoni collecting their fallen? Of course, Lesley wasn’t necessarily dead for good. She was a vamp, after all, and her torso hadn’t been fileted like Solomon’s had. The shudder that wracked up my spine came from both the memory and the craziness that had just occurred.
Once everyone but Char had walked off, Alys lifted her hands in the direction of where Lesley’s blood still pooled on the pavement.
“Shit,” she said, sounding defeated. “I tried to stop her. I really did, Alexis.”
“What are you even doing here?” I asked.
“What are you doing with her?” Char demanded.
Alys sighed. “I’d found her involved with a vamp nest in Richmond. She’s always had this wild streak, but she’s good deep down. She still had hope, and I’d had her convinced to convert. I’ve been looking for help for days, but I can’t find Amadis anywhere. Then I sensed you guys here.” She groaned with frustration. “We were so close! I just made her go too long without drinking. We’ve been so thirsty.”
Someone in a tree grunted. An arrow swooshed through the air toward Alys’ head. I caught it in my hand.
“She’s one of us,” I snapped again as I threw their stupid arrow back at them. I took Alys’ arm and dragged her through the gate, onto the sacred grounds. “See?”
Without waiting for a response, we strode across the semicircular driveway for the large, gray, Gothic-style structure ahead of us where everyone else had gone. Everyone but hunters, who still hid in trees and behind walls. I wondered how much we could trust them, and hoped no other Amadis headed this way. Those hunters needed some serious training before they killed any of us. Assuming they hadn’t already nailed an Amadis, which they probably had. We’d almost reached the steps when Carlie ran out to us.
“Your friend is hurt pretty bad,” she said after we finally managed to give each other a hug in greeting.
“I know,” I said miserably. “I don’t know if she’s going to make it.”
“We have the hospital,” Carlie said. “Part of it anyway. We have to be careful so we don’t show signs that we’re here, but we have access to an operating room and a generator.”
I looked over my shoulder at Tristan, who stood in the second-floor window of one of the townhomes, watching us. Probably listening, too.
“With the right tools, Tristan can at least try—”
“I can do it,” Carlie said. “I’m a surgeon now. Was, anyway. Finally finished everything about two months before shit hit the fan.”
I twisted my head to stare at her. “Really? How’d that happen? When?”
“Second year of college, after you left. I decided to go pre-med, then came up here for med school. I’ve been here ever since.”
I grasped her arm. “Do you think you can save Sheree? She’s not exactly normal.”
Carlie lifted a brow over her caring blue eyes. “What is she?”
“Um . . . a were-tiger?”
Carlie chuckled, and then shook her head. “I can try.”
“I don’t know what that means about her anatomy,” I said. “I know it means she runs hot, so don’t be alarmed unless she gets to like 120 or something.”
“I’ll do what I can, Alexis. But I can’t guarantee anything.”
I nodded. “I know. I’m just asking you to try. Whatever you have to do.”
We entered the building where Blossom and Jax waited with Sheree just inside. Carlie went off to find some help, and I squatted down next to Sheree. Her brown eyes rolled up to look at me, and her purple lips turned slightly upward.
“They’re going to take care of you,” I said. “You’ll be good as new in no time.”
Carlie and two men in their twenties arrived. The guys lifted the door Sheree lay on, ready to take her away.
“We’ll be on the other side of campus,” Carlie said to me. “But don’t worry. I’ll take care of her as best as I can. We have plenty of room for all of you here. Some food, too. Not an abundance, but we’re more than happy to share what we have.”
“Thanks, Carlie,” I said. “It’s good to see you. Bye, Sheree. See you soon.”
Her fingers twitched in a little wave. When they carried her away, Blossom and Jax following, I had to bite my lip to keep the tears at bay. Char let out a worried sigh.
“You should go with them,” I said to her. “Keep them shielded, just in case.”
“They’ll still be on holy grounds. And I’m not leaving you. Nobody else is here to protect you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m on sacred grounds, too. I’ll be fine.” I pressed my hand to my belly, knowing Char probably worried more about the baby’s safety since she knew I’d fight her about my own. “We’ll both be fine.”
“I’m sure we all will. But I’m not taking any chances.” She walked around and gave Alys a hug. “You’re looking good, girl. Sorry I couldn’t do that before.”
“That . . . was insane out there,” Alys said. “It happened so fast. She just took off . . .”
Char stopped her with a hand on the vamp’s shoulder. “We can’t control them. We can only try to lead them, and you did the best you could.”
Alys blew out a heavy breath and nodded. Then she looked at me, down at my belly, up at my face, and squinted. “Are you . . .?”
I nodded, and she let out a squeal as she hugged me. Once again, I pretended to be happy about it.
The chatter of girls’ voices came down the long hall.
“We’re going to stay in a dorm,” Heather said as she led the rest of the girls and Dorian toward us, walking ahead with a little spring in her step. She slowed when she saw Alys by my side, though. I wasn’t sure, but I thought the last time she might have seen the vampire was when she and Lesley had been trying to turn the girl into one.
“Alys is one of us now,” I said.
Heather nodded as she walked toward us. “She must be if she’s here, right?”
I thought she’d be a little more wary than that. She should have been a little more wary. Sometimes I worried about the girl and her comfort level among monsters.
“It’s so weird that you knew that Carlie chick before,” Heather continued while we waited for the rest of her group to join us. Dorian really dragged his feet behind the girls.
“Yeah, it’s a small world,” I said, snorting at the understatement. Carlie, James, Lesley, Alys . . . who else from my past would end up here? The rhetorical question made me frown. I wasn’t sure how many other people were alive anymore.
“So,” Heather said, “I guess this is like the headquarters building now. They said there’s a big auditorium upstairs where they gather for meetings and stuff. The dorms are next door. And here I thought the end of the world meant I’d never know what it was like to live in a dorm.”
“Way to see the bright side, kid,” Charlotte muttered.
This campus seemed like the perfect place for escape when the Daemoni attacked, but obviously not too many people thought of it, because we didn’t pass a single person on the short walk to the residence hall. We entered the massive stone building through an archway, and when we walked the hallway, we had a hard time determining which rooms were already claimed. Every one looked like someone had been there recently. As though the students had had no chance to pack or anything, but had run away in a panic. Perhaps they had. We’d been cut off from the rest of the world, making our way across freakin’ Siberia, when civilization fell, so I only had my imagination for how people had reacted.
I wondered if we could have made any difference if we’d been
more in the middle of it all. Probably not. So far, it seemed like I’d only made things worse. For every step forward I thought we were making, we were pushed back two or three by Lucas and his army.
The girls settled on two adjoining rooms, and Dorian and I entered the next set of double rooms. They were boys’ rooms—and smelled like it. Even Dorian wrinkled his nose.
“This is gross,” he said. So we crossed the hall to another pair that had belonged to girls. He looked around at the bra hanging on a chair back and a box of tampons sitting on a dresser. “Ugh. This is even worse.”
I picked up the bra and the tampons and anything else “gross” I could find and tossed them all into the closet. “Better?”
He shrugged as he dropped onto a bed made with a hot-pink-and-zebra-print comforter.
“At least it doesn’t stink.”
He nodded as Sasha crawled out of his coat and curled into his lap. “It’s fine.”
“But you’re not.” I sat on the bed next to him. His mood hadn’t changed since we’d left the motel room, but he didn’t respond. I glanced out the window. “You can see where Dad is from here.”
He barely looked up to see. “I feel bad for Noah. He shouldn’t be locked up like that. It’s not fair.”
“Dorian, we talked about this already. We’re going to try to convert him.”
“He doesn’t belong here, Mom.” He sighed and stared at Sasha’s back as he dug his fingers into her thick fur. “Neither do I.”
“Little Man, I know it sucks to have to be in a girls’ room, but the whole world sucks right now. You have a safe place to stay, though. There’s food. And I’m sure there are people somewhere.”
“I don’t get along with people.”
“What about Heather? You get along with her.”
He ignored me. “I don’t belong here, Mom. Not with Normans and not with the Amadis. Not even with you and Dad.”
“Dorian,” I gasped, and I moved closer to him and wrapped my arms around his stiff shoulders. Sasha moved over to my lap and licked my arm. “Don’t ever say that. You belong right here with Dad and me. Wherever we are is where you should be.”
He didn’t respond at first, but then said, “Nobody wants me here.”
“I do! I always will, forever and ever. Until the end of days. Dad does, too, of course. And Uncle Owen, Blossom . . . and Heather—”
“Haven’t you noticed? Heather doesn’t give a crap about me anymore.”
“Of course she does!”
He shrugged my arms off of him. “Not really. She barely even talks to me. Treats me like I’m a totally different person than I used to be. And I am.”
“No, Dorian—”
He pulled completely away and jumped off the bed then turned to face me. He lifted his arms out and flicked his hands toward himself.
“Look at me, Mom. Really look at me! I am different. Different than the kid I was. Different from all of you. I’m not Norman. I’m not Amadis.” He tossed his hand toward the window. “I’m more like Noah than anyone.”
Shaking my head in denial, I moved Sasha to the bed and stood in front of my son. I placed my hands on each side of his face and tilted it down, forcing him to look at me.
“You are Amadis, Dorian. You are my son. Don’t you ever forget that. You are nothing like them.”
“Do you really believe that?” he seethed, his eyes hard as he glared at me, his nostrils flaring. “Do you seriously fool yourself with that bullshit? Or do you know deep down inside that I’m exactly like him?”
“Dorian,” I whispered.
He yanked himself free from my grip and glared at me. When he spoke, his voice came quieter and more forlorn than a child his age should ever sound. “He doesn’t belong here. I don’t, either. We both know it. You just have to admit it.”
He strode out of the room, Sasha on his heels, and I could only stand there, staring after him with tears spilling over my cheeks. He didn’t even talk like a child anymore. His words, his tone . . . the despair in his voice. He spoke as though he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He sounded like me.
And it was up to me to keep him protected. To keep him safe from the clutches of the Daemoni. Those six months earlier this year had been excruciating, and now I feared I was about to lose him for good.
After all, I was losing everybody else. Why not him, too?
Chapter 24
“Dorian,” I yelled as I ran out of the room after him.
“Let him go.” Char placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me in the corridor, and my whole body sort of sank. “He won’t go far, but he wants to be alone.”
I scrubbed at the tears on my face. “You heard?”
She frowned. “I’m sorry, Alexis. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he’s kind of right.”
I shook my head. “I won’t accept it. There has to be a way to stop it.”
With that thought, I strode down the hall toward the door, down the steps, across the driveway, and through the gate with Char keeping pace next to me. We entered the townhome where Tristan, Owen, and Vanessa had brought Noah, and I took the stairs two at a time to the front bedroom. I found them in there with Noah spread eagle on a four-poster bed, his wrists and ankles magically bound to it. I frowned, remembering what it’d felt like not too long ago to be held against my will. Maybe Dorian was right about it not being fair. But I didn’t care at the moment.
“How do we break the curse?” I demanded of Noah.
He lifted his head off the pillow, peered at me, and smirked. That was his only answer.
“Tell me how to save my son, damn it!”
He only stared at me with the stupid half-smile that probably made some girls’ panties melt, but irritated me. I wanted to throw myself at him and beat the answers out of his arrogant ass. With anger, fear, and despair about Dorian roiling through me, constraining myself from doing so took every bit of self-control I possessed.
“Where are the rest of the Summoned?” I asked, my fists clenched at my side, and now he looked away from me. “You know, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer me. I asked him more questions about the curse and the Summoned, and he ignored every one. After pacing the room several times, I joined Tristan, who leaned against the wall opposite the bed. Vanessa was perched on the edge of the large wooden dresser, picking at her cuticles. Owen sat in a reading chair next to some bookshelves. We all stared ruthlessly at Noah. He didn’t bother fighting against the invisible constraints, but only lay there.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked a good thirty minutes later.
“Know what?” Tristan asked.
“About Santa Claus’s naughty and nice list,” Noah snarked. “About the Summoned, Seth. What do you think?”
“So we can free them, too,” I said.
Noah’s gaze came to me, and he seemed to really look at me for the first time. “Why would you even bother?”
I shrugged. “Lots of reasons. Like winning this war.”
He chuckled. “You can’t win. There’s no place for good in a war.”
“Well, we all know that nobody here is entirely good, don’t we?” I pushed myself away from the wall and took a step closer to him. Something flickered in his eyes. He seemed to appreciate that statement of truth. “But we can all choose to do the right thing. And you, Noah, know that what Lucas is doing to all of the Summoned and their children is not right. Even for evil.”
“So what are you going to do? Take control yourself and force them to be good?”
I ignored his mocking tone. “We’re going to remove the stones from them just like we did you and let them make their own decisions. If they want to be good, then we’ll help them.”
“So young. So naïve.” He let out an honest-to-god laugh now. “Don’t you understand, stupid girl? You can’t convert us. Not me. Not any of us. We’re cursed!”
I tilted my head. “Then tell me how to break it.”
He didn’t
answer.
I threw my arms in the air. “We’ll figure it out on our own then. We will break it.”
Noah sighed. “It’s not up to you, Alexis. Not even the matriarch of the oh-so-wonderful Amadis can break it. You can’t even order it to be done. But even if you could . . . even if it was up to you . . . I don’t think you could make that decision.”
I narrowed my eyes and stepped even closer to him. “You don’t know me or what kind of decisions I’m willing to make to protect my son.”
“That’s just it,” he said, holding my gaze. “You’re not strong enough to break the curse. Not mentally or emotionally. You would never do what needs to be done.”
I glared at him for a long, drawn-out moment. His brow lifted as I did, but then he broke our connection and looked away, his mouth clamped shut. All kinds of emotions and questions ran through me, but I wouldn’t let him see any of them. I turned on my heel and strode for the door.
“They’re under The Mall,” he said when I reached the doorway. I paused and looked over my shoulder at him. “The Summoned, their descendants . . . all of them. Hidden in the underground tunnels.”
Owen and Tristan both stood up, straightening themselves with attention.
“Which mall?” Char asked.
“The Mall. The National Mall.”
“You’re sure?” Tristan asked.
“That’s where they’d had me, still controlling those English soldiers from here. Until they used me as bait to pull you in, then tried to burn me to a crisp before I could tell you.”
“Why should we believe you?” Owen asked.
Noah rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to. But what if I’m telling the truth? What’s the risk worth to you? To the Amadis? To humanity?”
I tried poking into his mind and barely caught a glimpse of his memory before my own brain cut it off. From what I could tell, he told the truth about being there, but that didn’t mean the others still were. Maybe this was another trap—Lucas or the sorcerers trying to reel us in again. Maybe he was even part of it, lying about their attempted murder of him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t reach those thoughts with my worthless power. And he was right. The Amadis counted on us to accomplish this mission. All of humanity was at stake. The risk would be worth it.