“Why didn’t you just tell us?” Sampson asked.
Gaston gave him a wistful smile. “I couldn’t. There are things that have to happen naturally without interference. When you found the book, it seemed there was a light at the end of the tunnel. As much as we wanted to help you, you had to find the truth in your own way.”
“You and your amazing sister,” Calmet said. “I’m so pleased to have met her. She is more than she believes she is.”
Regent nodded. “I’ve always known that about her.”
“So what is going on in Paris? Why the fear of another French Revolution? Why would a Watcher want to control vampires?”
“The Watcher who rules the olde vampires has put all of us in danger by going against our timeless code. He has become an abomination to all of us. He tried to take over once before, in the seventeenth century. He failed, but we all knew it was only a matter of time before he tried again.”
“You know who he is, don’t you?”
Calmet’s expression didn’t change. And, he didn’t answer.
“I get it,” Sampson said. “They can’t tell you because it goes against their non-interference code.”
“Unfortunately, one of the Watchers has interfered a great deal,” Calmet said. “It has put everything out of alignment. If it isn’t fixed, the world is at risk.”
“But why would he do such a thing, if he knows how dangerous the outcome could be?”
“He’s mad. He wants power—mortal power and vampire power. It all feeds his insatiable thirst for more.”
“How can I help?” Regent grasped the book close to his chest. “What can I do if I can’t even read it?”
“No one can read it. It lets you see what it wants you to see, in hopes that your true valor will shine through. The book has chosen you and your sister, Father Vandermire. It is up to you to save us all.”
“You can’t help us, Calmet? Not even with your power?”
He shook his head. “Especially because of my power. The Earth must not be the battlefield for Watchers. That is not our purpose here. I cannot help you defeat him, but I can do small things if you need me.”
“Like saving us from the vampire hit squad who’d kidnapped us?”
He nodded. “Exactly. And, in the end, the book will decide if you deserve to carry on.”
“You mean Jess and me?”
Calmet turned deathly serious. “You, as in the people of your world.”
Regent plunked back onto his chair because it felt as if his legs wouldn’t hold him up right.
“What should I do, then?”
“Go outside, stand beside your sister, and face what is to come. Be brave, Father, for the Immortal is going to tell you a story that will curdle your soul. A true story that will either make you stronger or send you spiraling out of control. I pray for your strength.”
“Thank you. I’ll take all the prayers I can get.”
The room rumbled again, and the floorboards separated as the ground rose under the house, then dropped again.
“And Sampson?” Regent asked.
“He can stay here with us. His injuries appear to be better, but he is still weak. He would not survive the battle you’re going to face.”
Regent held his breath and caught Sampson’s terrified expression. “Have faith, friend. Jess, Britt, and I will stop this egotistical Immortal, if it’s the last thing we do.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Sampson said, grasping both of Regent’s arms and giving him a hug.
JESS STOOD NEXT to Britt while Vlad and Veronique lined up next to them against whatever was approaching. The rumbling continued, and it obviously terrified everyone here, including Sinclair. He’d actually cowered back against the building, and Morana stood on the sidewalk between them, trying to figure out what she should do.
Jess wanted Morana to take a side—hopefully hers. But for now, she was in limbo.
The sidewalk undulated suddenly, and Morana fell to the ground. Jess nearly went to her, when something fell out of her sister’s pocket. A foil gum wrapper, folded in quarters, with something inside it.
They all saw it, even though she tried to hide it as quickly as she could.
Britt gasped, as did Veronique. “It’s her,” he said. “She’s the serial killer.”
“No, it can’t be.” Jess ran to Morana, who’d quickly shoved the wrappers back into her pocket.
“What was that?”
“It’s the drug Sinclair makes for me,” she admitted, albeit resentfully.
Jess stared into her twin sister’s eyes. She saw fear and determination at the same time. “How does this drug work, Morana?”
“None of your G.D. business,” she said.
“If you don’t tell us, we’ll think you killed all of those women.”
“Go to hell! How could you think such a thing of me?” Morana said, pressing her redder-than-red lips together in an almost petulant pout.
The rumbling stopped suddenly, and the dead silence that followed had everyone looking nervously at each other.
“I think I liked the rumbling better,” Vlad said, showing unusual nervousness. “And, I’m sorry to say that I thought Morana guilty of the killings. That’s why I sent Gervais to watch her.”
Unable to come to terms with what she knew about her twin sister, Jess turned back to Britt. They’d deal with Morana later. Right now, they had bigger things to worry about.
Out of the blue, Regent appeared. “Jess, are you okay?” he asked going directly to his sister and wrapping his arms around her.
“I’m fine,” she said, holding her brother at arm’s length in order to check his wellbeing. “I heard you were beaten up?”
He didn’t have a single bruise.
“I was beaten. Sampson and I were kidnapped by vampires, but Sampson got the worst of it. I thought he was dying, but our friend inside the house healed him. He must have healed me, too.”
“Thank heaven,” she said.
“What friend?” Morana moved in. “Who healed you?”
REGENT TOOK MORANA’S hand in his. “I can tell you who it wasn’t,” he said. “It wasn’t Sinclair. From what I’ve learned, Sinclair is helping the evil Immortal who is controlling the vampires.”
“Yeah, I just found that out, too,” Morana said, glancing at Jess before turning away again. “And it pisses me off because he was supposed to give me the position of power, but he lied about that all along. He’s just a servant.”
Jess felt cold creep up her spine. That, in itself was unusual. She took a fighting stance.
Fog started drifting up the street, billowing around every building and settling on the ground around their knees. “He’s coming,” Sinclair whimpered.
“Your father isn’t much of an underling, Morana. He seems terrified by whoever is coming,” Veronique said.
“You’re right, Veronique LaFontaine.” A voice drifted out of the fog. The voice came first and then the person.
Regent, Britt, and Jess stood frozen when the Immortal, who held France in the palm of his hand, stepped forward.
“No way! Cardinal Vasilli! How can it be you?” Jess gritted her teeth. She’d expected someone larger than life, not a weasel like Vasilli.
“A Cardinal in the Catholic Church?” Regent muttered.
He laughed at that. “Whatever serves my purpose. When I heard the twins still lived, I knew it was time to join you together, to glean your power.” He frowned and looked from one of them to the other. “So why don’t I feel any of this so-called power?” Vasilli said. Do you have to touch each other?”
It surprised Jess that he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure how the prophesy worked either.
“Not fricking likely,” Morana said. “We might be related,
but we’ll never be sisters.”
Tall, thin, and with a weak mustache, Vasilli strode up to Morana and stared into her face. “You have the eyes of a killer,” he said. “You are the daughter I am proud of.”
“Daughter?” Morana said, taking several steps back. “That’s not possible.”
Vasilli looked from Morana, to Jess, and then Regent. “It had been centuries since I’d been able to sire children until the three of you came along. When your mother bore twins, I knew it was my time. The prophesy was meant for me.”
“But if our mother was having twins, how did you know we’d be vampires?”
A malevolent grin slid across his face, showing all of his teeth.
Jess felt sick. This maniac was saying that she was his daughter. It couldn’t be.
“I knew because I had her bitten by a vampire. I was leader of the Parisian vampires, after all. All I had to do was command one to bite my twin daughters.”
Jess caught Regent swaying in her peripheral vision. Britt helped him to sit on the curb and then returned to stand next to Jess.
“But I wasn’t a vampire.” Jess said. “You failed.”
“You have something in your blood that made my vampires recoil. It wasn’t until you were twenty-nine that you were ripe for the picking. We waited patiently and got you then.
“And what of our mother?” Morana asked.
Vasilli pasted a fake look of regret on his face, but his eyes shone with glee. “She was, unfortunately, a casualty of my rise to power. It was inconsequential, really. She was merely a human, no better than the cattle in the fields. You must understand that now that you’re a vampire. At any rate, before I could dispose of her, she’d become pregnant again. I waited in case she bore another set of twins. When that one was born . . .”—he glared at Regent—“she was worthless to me. Before I could take the twins in order to fulfill the prophesy, this insipid Immortal . . .”—he pointed at where Sinclair still cowered—“this useless bit of flesh and bone tricked me into believing one of my daughters had died. Morana. Sinclair had taken her away in the night and raised her as his own without my knowledge. He’d kept her hidden . . . until you came to Paris. I was having you both watched,” he said to Regent and Jess. “Imagine my surprise when my beloved Morana ran in to Regent by accident.”
“You bastard,” Britt said between teeth ground together.
“You dare call me a bastard,” he said, glaring at Britt. “You, the progeny of one of the Fallen.”
Jess narrowed her gaze on Vasilli. Britt didn’t know enough about his heritage, and Vasilli could shake him to the core with this tripe. “Liar,” she said. “Britt knows that’s not true. You, in fact, brought one of his brethren to him as a damaged vampire. After Uriel was healed, did you not think he would tell Britt of his wonderful ‘Fallen’ family?” she lied in an effort to undo Vasilli’s efforts.
She knew Britt’s spirits had lifted when he reached over and kissed her on the mouth. Just a quick kiss, but that alone had incensed Vasilli. Good one, Britt.
Vasilli spat, then stomped his foot. The ground rumbled around them anew. “I didn’t think you’d be able to heal Uriel. I thought he’d bite you and pull you into the sweet seduction of your true nature, thus fulfilling the prophesy. You see, you can’t be a vampire with a partial soul for the prophesy to work—you both need to be full-fledged vampires.” He shrugged. “But that’s easy enough to fix now that you are both here, especially since I’ve found a way around the partial-soul problem.”
All the time Vasilli talked, Vlad’s vampires were secretly moving in. Jess tried not to make any eye movements that would give them away.
“I already know about your reinforcements,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “And, I know about the women you’ve been killing to satiate your vampire desires, dearest daughter,” he said to Morana. “It pleases me that you aren’t a watered-down version of your cop sister.”
Suddenly, Sinclair rushed forward. “She isn’t a serial killer. I raised her as my own. Taught her good from bad.”
Vasilli snorted a laugh. “And how could someone as damaged as you teach her goodness, even if it were possible to teach one of the damned such a thing.”
Vasilli’s attention switched to Regent. He obviously despised his son for what he’d managed to do for Jess. It went against his plan.
Morana turned on Sinclair. “You’re the one who made me what I am? You created a monster by addicting me to your drug and making me need more and more.”
“Unfortunately, at the end of the day, even though I am a servant to your father, you can’t trust what he says, he lies. He found me when you were three. He was furious and made me do it. I swear to you, I had no idea it made you kill those poor women.” He actually looked like he hated Vasilli now. “I do love you, Morana, but I’m weak and Vasilli is strong. I can’t fight him.”
“Not if you want to live,” Vasilli spat.
“How could you kill all of those women, Morana?” Regent said in a weak voice from the curb. “They were young, innocent, and they had lives to live! Families!”
“It’s not my fault—you’ve heard the truth. It’s Vasilli who is to blame for creating me. He’s the monster.”
“I had hopes for you, Morana. I wanted you to realize we could help you.” Regent’s voice nearly broke.
She glared at him again, then Jess. “I despise both of you, don’t you know that? I certainly haven’t tried to hide it. You can’t make me feel bad about doing something that is part of my nature. I was born to survive. And taking blood was the only way I could do it.” The whole time she was talking, she seemed more distraught than angry. Vampires didn’t like being manipulated any more than humans did.
“Enough of this sniveling. It’s unbecoming of my one true daughter,” Vasilli said.
“And the prophesy?” Britt asked angrily. “How do you hope to use your daughters to your advantage now?”
“The prophesy will heighten my abilities to a point that no one can destroy me. I will ingest their blood, to the last drop. And it will be the sweetest poison, and will increase my abilities not just on this planet but everywhere. I will be all powerful.”
The air started sparking around Vasilli. Tiny little flashes of light that electrified everything near him. His hair began to stand on end, and his feet hovered about a foot off the ground.
At the same time, Jess noted that Britt’s aura had turned blue. He’d begun to glow. He was going to try to stop Vasilli, all by himself. What could she do to help? For the first time in a very long time, she felt powerless. Somehow, she had to be able to kick some Immortal ass! She couldn’t think about this vile creature as her father.
Vasilli’s eyes glazed over and were now milky. His skin appeared almost transparent, and they could see electricity moving through his veins instead of blood.
“How do we fight that?” Jess said.
Britt leaned in closer to her ear. “It might just be a light show, something like shock-and-awe tactics used by the military.”
“Don’t try to fight him, Britt,” she said, touching his arm. “Don’t do this alone.”
Vasilli laughed, and his voice echoed off the rotting buildings around them. Some were probably inhabited, but no one exited.
“We’ll both do whatever we have to do in order to stop this monster, my love. It’s our role in this life,” Jess said, hating that thought until she noticed Regent, suddenly looking stronger. He stood between them and Vasilli and opened the book he was holding, then raised it in the air. It was as if the light show of sparks were drawn to it, because they exited Vasilli and danced around the book.
Regent’s hair now stood on end, too, and his veins glowed in his body. That scared Jess more than anything else she’d seen tonight.
“Regent?” she shouted.
“I’m fine. This is why the book called me to it. It protects humans from Immortals who break the sacred laws.” His voice had taken on a hollow sound, as if coming from a speaker.
“But you are not going to defeat me with a simple book that holds the rules of my kind.” Vasilli laughed, and his voice echoed through the street. “I’m much stronger than a mere book, as Calmet can attest.” He turned angry eyes on Sinclair. “Get over here, and bring that brat with you.”
Sinclair started to touch Morana’s arm, but she whipped it out of his hand.
“Don’t touch me. Not if you want to live.”
Sinclair instantly grew in size until he was at least seven feet tall. “I’m stronger than you’ll ever realize, Morana. Don’t try to fight me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Vasilli laughed. “You’ve grown attached to my progeny, Longina. Maybe too attached for you to be useful to me any longer.”
Jess adjusted her stance. She didn’t like the sound of that. They couldn’t misjudge Vasilli. He must have real strength if he’d kept the olde vampires under his thumb for centuries. It was time for a change, and she planned on being the catalyst for that change, prophesy or not.
Vlad’s vampires stood at the end of the street, now, but Vasilli had put up a bubble-like barrier against them. They couldn’t break through.
“So much for help from the outside,” she said.
Britt moved closer to her. His blue glow remained the same, and knowing him, he’d be afraid to kill her and Morana with it.
“If you have to kill both of us, Britt, you know what to do,” she said. “You have to save everyone,” Jess said.
Since Vasilli and Calmet had similar abilities as Britt, maybe that meant his light would have no effect on them, anyway.
Then Regent calmly stepped into the fray between them and Vasilli, still holding the book high.
Oh Lord, Regent, she thought. Don’t get overconfident. That book might not protect you.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, than Vasilli raised one arm, then twisted his hand and flung it to the left. The book went with it, and Regent fell to the ground.
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