Undaunted

by HELEN HARDT

  “Answer me. What color?”

  “Red.” Though I truly didn’t see red.

  The last surge was so terrible, I thought for sure it had taken my life.

  “Open your eyes!”

  Her voice. Her shout.

  I used my last shred of strength to obey her.

  She held up the blue block.

  “What color, Dante?”

  “Blue,” I whispered, actually seeing blue, actually believing the hoarse word that fell from my dry lips.

  She smiled with evil gleaming from her eyes. “Blue what?”

  “Blue…my queen.”

  Chapter Nine

  Erin

  The emergency room was empty when I got into work. I looked around.

  “Hello?”

  Something was wrong. I logged on to my computer to check on Lucy.

  No Lucy. She wasn’t registered at this hospital. Even if she’d been transferred, she’d still be in the computer from her initial admission to the ER the previous night.

  I keyed in more patients frantically, my heart racing.

  Nothing. No data.

  No patients?

  No one in this hospital?

  Then—

  I jumped when a faint tap landed on my shoulder.

  I turned.

  “Abe?”

  Abe Lincoln stood behind me.

  “What are you doing here? Are you all right?” I looked him over for injuries. He seemed to have recovered nicely from his beating a few nights ago. In fact, I saw no indication that he’d been injured at all.

  “I see the transfusion helped. Why did you leave the hospital? You should have been monitored.”

  No response.

  “At least you’re okay. Next time, you need to wait until I or someone else tells you it’s safe for you to leave. What if your body had rejected the blood?” Unlikely, but it could have happened.

  He stayed silent.

  I stood and reached toward him. “What’s the matter?”

  Redness rimmed his tired, sunken eyes. “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  “It’s okay. Just don’t do it again. If you come in here for treatment, stay until we’re sure you’re okay? Got it?” I smiled. Or tried to. Something about this night was definitely off.

  I waited, but he didn’t respond.

  “I need to get back to work. Our system has crashed or something. We’ve lost all our patient records.”

  The silence in the ER hovered over me like a smothering cloak. I turned back toward my computer, ready to sit, when Abe touched my shoulder once more.

  I turned to meet his gaze.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  “It’s okay. Just remember that next—”

  A chill swept the back of my neck.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  Another man entered the nurse’s computer station. Tall and burly. A leather jacket. Dark hair and beard.

  And fangs.

  I gasped, my heart hurtling in my chest. “Wh-Who are you?”

  The vampire closed his eyes and inhaled. “Finally, we will taste you.”

  I eased backward until the back of my legs hit the computer table.

  Nowhere to go. The vampire was between me and the door.

  “Abe…please…”

  “I’m sorry, Erin.” His eyes were shadowed, glazed over.

  “Are you glamoured?” I whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  The vampire took one step forward slowly and then another, inhaling deeply again.

  “I’m hungry.” Another breath in. “Really fucking hungry.”

  “Really fucking hungry,” another voice echoed.

  A second vampire had entered.

  Then another behind him.

  And another.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  “Abe!” I screamed, furiously glancing around. “Dante! Help me! Dante! Dante!”

  “He’s not coming for you,” one of them said, his eyes dark and full of fury. “No one is coming for you.”

  “You belong to us now,” said another.

  “Us,” they all echoed.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.” Abe moved away slowly, his lanky body shifting awkwardly, like an automaton.

  “Help!” I cried with desperation. “Help me. Please!”

  But no one was here. The ER was desolate. Where was everyone? Anyone?

  Four vampires, their faces pale and their eyes smoking, stalked toward me slowly, their canines stark white.

  Fangs. So many fangs. So many fangs that wanted to bite into my flesh. Suck my blood.

  “I’m sorry, Erin.”

  “She’s pretty, too,” one said. “We can take more than her blood. Have fun with her hot body while we drain her.”

  I screamed once more, slinking against my computer table. Nothing I could do. Nowhere to run. They formed a wall between the door and me. I felt around for the knob to the drawer under my station and pulled it open slightly.

  A few pens and a package of chocolate cupcakes. The pens could do a little damage, but I couldn’t take on four of them.

  The bearded one lunged toward me, his fangs dripping with saliva.

  I closed my eyes and screamed once more.

  I’m sorry, Erin. I’m sorry, Erin. I’m sorry, Erin.

  I shot up in bed at the piercing shriek.

  It had come from my own throat.

  Within seconds, Dante raced into my bedroom. “Erin! What’s the matter?”

  I jumped out of bed and ran into his arms.

  “Baby? What is it? What happened?”

  “They came for me,” I sobbed. “They came for me, and there was no one to help me.”

  “Shh.” He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “You’re safe here with me.” He led me back to the bed and pushed me gently into a sitting position. Then he sat next to me. “You had a dream.”

  I shook my head. “That was no dream. It was a nightmare.”

  “It’s over now.”

  “It was so real, Dante. I went to work tonight, and no one was there. The ER was totally vacant. And then Abe Lincoln…”

  “What about him?”

  I poured out the guts of my dream to the vampire I loved. “They were going to drain me, Dante. Four huge vampires. They were nothing like you and River. They were mean and evil, and they wanted my blood. Not like you want it. They wanted it all.”

  He rubbed my back, caressing me, trying to soothe me.

  “Abe Lincoln brought them to me.”

  “He won’t. He can’t.”

  I nodded furiously, gulping. “He can. He was in the ER the other night. They beat him bad, Dante. They beat him because he wouldn’t bring them to me.”

  “Shh,” he said in a soothing voice. “It might not have happened that way.”

  “It did. He said it did.”

  “He lives on the street, Erin. He could have been beaten for any number of reasons.”

  “No. No. He had a hemoglobin of six point nine. He’d nearly been drained.”

  His eyes widened for a second, but he calmed down quickly. “That was a nightmare, baby. You’re all right. I’m not going to let anyone have you. I promise.”

  I shivered against Dante’s strong, hard body.

  I believed him.

  I just wasn’t sure he was a match for four hungry vampires.

  “Is everything okay up here?”

  I looked up from Dante’s chest, both of us rising from the bed. Julian stood in my doorway.

  “She’s okay,” Dante said. “But I’m glad you’re here, Dad. Maybe you can help us.”

  “Oh?”

  “You want to tell him?” Dante asked me.

  What could it hurt? I spilled it all out once more for Dante’s father. He listened intently.

  “Did you get a good look at these vampires?” he asked.

  “I…don’t know. Why?”

  “Perhaps you’d be able to recognize them.”

  “It was a dr
eam, Dad. How would she recognize them?”

  Julian entered the bedroom, though he didn’t sit. Had I ever seen him sit?

  “You learn a lot when you pass out of this corporeal life,” he said. “As you most likely know, we rarely remember our dreams unless we awaken quickly, which I assume happened to you after this one, Erin.”

  I nodded.

  “Our brains keep our dreams from us for a reason,” he continued. “Many times we’re not ready or able to process the information in them. Some say dreams are answers to questions that we haven’t learned to ask yet. Some say dreams signify past life regressions. I’ve found both to be true, relatively speaking, depending on the dream.”

  “I don’t have any questions about being attacked by vampires,” I said. “And I can’t imagine that it’s something I need to learn to ask.”

  “I agree,” Julian said.

  “Then you think she was attacked by vampires in a past life?” Dante asked.

  Julian shook his head. “Once you leave the corporeal plane, you realize time has no meaning as you once believed it to. It’s fluid, with all moments in time existing simultaneously.”

  My brain was apparently fried from the vampire dream. I didn’t understand anything Julian was saying.

  Apparently, neither did Dante.

  “Okay. Exactly what does that mean, Dad?”

  “When you leave the corporeal plane, which you do in your dreams, there’s not much difference between a regression…and a premonition.”

  Chapter Ten

  Dante

  Erin pulled away from me, her gaze resting on my father’s ghost. “You think I had a premonition?”

  “I do.”

  “But nothing else made sense in the dream. The ER would never be empty, and patient records would never be erased from our system. We have backups to our backups to our backups.”

  “A premonition is rarely literal,” my father said. “But it can be a warning. In this case, it might be warning you to stay away from these particular vampires.”

  “I don’t need a warning for that.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It’s showing you who they are. That’s why I asked if you might be able to recognize them. Can you remember anything about them from the dream? Anything at all that would help us find them?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was crazy scared. All I was thinking about was finding a way to get out of there. There was no exit for me. I was trapped, and they were going to drain me. After they raped me.”

  I growled without meaning to, my fangs itching to descend.

  “Relax, Dante,” my father said. “It didn’t happen. We won’t let it ever happen.”

  My father meant well, but his words didn’t relax me. Not even slightly.

  “Try, Erin,” my father continued. “Anything at all you can recall, even the tiniest thing.”

  “Dad, she’s still shivering. Maybe we could do this later?”

  “No, Dante. I understand you want to protect her, but her mind will forget the details quickly. She must remember now.”

  Erin cupped my cheek. “It’s okay. I know I’m safe with you here. I’ll try.”

  I smiled and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “If you’re sure.”

  “If your dad is right, maybe we can figure out who these vampires are and get to them before they get to me. I have to try.”

  “Erin, there’s one more thing,” my father said.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “I can help you. I can take you back to your dream. But to do that, I have to glamour you.”

  She stiffened beside me.

  “No,” I said adamantly. “Absolutely not.”

  “Dante…”

  “No, baby. It nearly killed me when I found out he’d glamoured you. And you weren’t happy about it yourself, as I recall.”

  “I wasn’t, but if we can figure out—”

  “No!” My fangs descended, and I growled as a sharp pain shot through me—a new sensation I’d never felt before. I touched my lips.

  “You’re maturing, Dante,” my father said. “Your teeth descended almost instantly. After a while, you won’t notice the pain.”

  Another thing I didn’t know.

  “You and I need to spend some time together. I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance for that yet. What you’re dealing with is normal. Around the age of thirty, some changes occur in our physiology.”

  “I’m twenty-eight.”

  “Bodies are different. But we need to get back to Erin.”

  “I’ll do it.” She stood tall. “I’ll let you glamour me.”

  “No—”

  “Dante, it’s not your call.” She caressed my forearm, her touch a soothing presence.

  “We have to do it now, son, before the specifics of her dream leave her mind.”

  “I can’t be here for this.” I moved away slightly.

  “That’s all right. Take a walk if you have to, Dante. I’ll protect her.”

  I didn’t move, though. My feet stayed glued to Erin’s carpet. Leaving felt all wrong. My place was here with Erin. Beside her. No matter what.

  “I’m not leaving. I can’t.”

  “Dante…” Erin reached toward me again.

  “You do what you have to do, Erin. I don’t have to like it.”

  “But I don’t want to make you unhappy.”

  “I will do whatever I need to do to protect you. If that means letting my father glamour you, so be it. My place is next to you, no matter what.”

  “Lie down on your bed, Erin,” my father said. “Free your mind. I won’t place you under a strong glamour. You’ll remember everything. I’ll just give you a short wave of energy, one that will filter through your thoughts and bring you where you need to be.”

  She lay down, her eyes pleading with me. “Dante, lie next to me? Please?”

  I couldn’t deny her. I took my place next to her, our bodies touching, her warmth soaking me with a nice feeling I hoped would morph into calmness.

  “Close your eyes, Erin. You won’t feel me in your mind. I can’t extract your thoughts from you. I can only manipulate where they go.”

  I hoped Erin was more relaxed than I was. My father was about to poke into my lover’s mind. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to know her secrets.

  “It’s not like that, Dante,” he said.

  “How did you—”

  “No, I’m not clairvoyant. Neither is my father. We’re both just very intuitive where our children—and in his case, grandchildren—are concerned. I can tell what’s bothering you by the way your body reacts. Right now you’re as rigid as a wooden plank.”

  “I’d be happy to be only that rigid right now,” I said with sarcasm.

  “You know what glamouring is. It’s manipulating thoughts, not extracting them. I can’t see what’s in Erin’s mind. I can only manipulate what I know is there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know how glamouring works. I’m just not very good at it.”

  “I’ll teach you. Once we have more time. For now, relax. You have a calming effect on her. You want to help her, don’t you?”

  “Of course I want to help her. I’d do anything for her.”

  “Then relax. Help her relax.”

  I drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Still my pulse raced. Another breath. In. Out. In. Out.

  I entwined my fingers around Erin’s. Perhaps my touch would help.

  “That’s it,” my father said. “Relax. Both of you.”

  Beside me, Erin breathed softly. Slowly. She was relaxing. She was doing what she had to do.

  I could do no less.

  “You won’t feel anything, Erin,” he said. “You’ll just start reliving your dream. But you’ll know it’s a dream. You’ll know they can’t hurt you. The only purpose of my manipulation is for you to take a good look at these vampires. Notice anything specific about each one of them. Remember if they call each other by name. Anything that can help us i
dentify them.”

  “I understand,” she said softly.

  “Now tell me what you see,” my father said, his voice oddly comforting.

  “I’m at my computer station in the ER. Abe Lincoln is coming in. He keeps telling me he’s sorry.”

  “Remember, it’s just a dream,” my father reiterated.

  “I know. I’m standing. A vampire is there now. His teeth are out.” She stiffened.

  I caressed the palm of her hand.

  “Just a dream,” my father said.

  “He has a beard. A bushy beard. Not a goatee. His eyes are brown, I think. Maybe dark blue. A really dark blue.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. All four of them are there now. I can’t… I can’t… I can only see the first one. He seems to be their leader or something.”

  “Look around. Anything? Is he tall?”

  “He’s big. Burly. But…I don’t think he’s as tall as Dante.”

  “What is he wearing?”

  “Black. They’re all wearing black. Leather, I think. Black pants. No, they’re jeans. Really dark blue jeans.”

  “What are they saying to you?”

  “They want to taste me. God. Fangs. Their fangs are everywhere. They’re all I see. Just the white, dripping fangs. Everywhere. They want—”

  I jolted upward into a sitting position.

  “Dante?” My father said.

  “I saw them,” I said, not even believing the words that tumbled out of my mouth.

  “Saw the vampires?”

  “Yeah. She was describing them, and I thought I was just picturing them in my mind, but I saw them, Dad. I actually saw them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m completely sure.”

  A vile rage permeated my gut.

  The bearded one was their leader. Erin was right. His eyes were dark blue, not brown.

  And he wore a gold pin on the lapel of his black leather jacket.

  A symbol I couldn’t see, no matter how hard I squinted.

  A symbol that I knew—and I didn’t know how I knew—was important.

  “The others,” I said, “are inconsequential. They need to feed, but they’re nearly invisible next to their leader. The one with the beard.”

  “He’s right,” Erin said. “I can’t make out their features. I thought it was because I was scared, but now that I’m looking straight at them, they’re just…blurs.”