Undaunted

by HELEN HARDT

  “A dominant personality will sometimes cause that, especially in a dream,” Julian said. “No matter. Find the leader, and we’ll find the others.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Erin

  Dante and I left for the hospital a couple of hours before I was due on my shift. We wanted to check on Lucy.

  She was lying in a hospital bed in the surgical unit, awake. “Shh,” she said quietly when we walked in. She pointed to River asleep in a recliner.

  “He’s still here?” Dante said.

  Lucy nodded.

  I walked to her and sat down in the chair next to her bed. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  Lucy yawned. “Yeah. But I woke up a few minutes ago. I guess I knew you were coming.”

  I grabbed her hand. She was warm. I stood and leaned over and kissed her forehead. Also warm.

  “Normal for me,” she said.

  Dante sighed. “So…that’s who you are.”

  “And who you are,” she said. “River told me. Imagine. Vampires exist. How many other species are out there, keeping themselves secret?”

  I hoped her question was rhetorical. “I’m feeling like the odd person out here,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant but failing miserably. “I can’t believe you’re a werewolf.”

  “The term werewolf is kind of antiquated,” she said. “Only humans use it. We prefer the term ‘wolf shifter.’ And you’re not the odd person out. We’re no different than you are.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think that’s a crock.”

  “We’re mortal, just like you. Born, just like you.”

  “And one of you turns into a wolf and the other two drink blood. Not a lot like me after all.”

  “Erin…” Dante’s voice was commanding and a little patronizing.

  But he was right. Lucy was recovering from an attack and emergency surgery. She didn’t need any additional stress. As a nurse, I knew better.

  “Do you remember who attacked you, Luce?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back, I think he was a vampire.”

  “With a dark-brown beard?”

  “I see only black and white in wolf form. But yes, it was dark. I got a good scent, though. I can help you find him.”

  “Vampires don’t have scents,” Dante said.

  “Not to other vampires,” Lucy said. “River told me. But I’m not a vampire. I smelled him just like I can smell anyone when I’m in wolf form. He doesn’t have a ‘vampire’ scent. Just a unique scent like any other living being.”

  “Your sense of smell is only more acute when you shift?” Dante asked.

  “It’s slightly better than a human’s when I’m not in wolf form, but it’s very strong when I shift.”

  Again, reality was taking a big hit. I had tons more questions, but they’d have to wait. Right now, Lucy needed her rest. But there was one question that couldn’t wait. I had to know.

  “The night of River’s accident?”

  She closed her eyes, sighed, and then opened them. “I shifted. Out of fear. I charged through the windshield and escaped before impact. I’m very fast in wolf form.”

  “You were the dog the witnesses saw at the scene,” Dante said.

  “Yup. And those tattered clothes in the car were mine.”

  “Why doesn’t River remember you changing?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He was probably using all his attention to try to avoid the accident, and the impact jarred him. He knows now, though. His fragmented memory was really freaking him out. I feel terrible about lying to him about retrograde amnesia, but I have to be very careful, just like the two of you do.” She smiled. “Luckily, he has forgiven me.”

  I couldn’t help a smile as well. “We both love vampires.”

  She pinked a little. “I don’t know about love yet, but I’m interested to see where it goes.”

  River budged a little then, stretching his arms and opening his eyes. “Oh. Hey, guys.”

  “Not to bring up the elephant in the room,” Dante said, “but we have to go back to the cemetery.”

  Chills erupted over my skin.

  Lucy flinched. “No. Not until I can go with you.”

  She was clearly agitated. Maybe they’d put it off.

  “We can’t wait. We have to get my father’s body as soon as possible, before it decomposes any further.”

  “Decomposition doesn’t matter,” I added. “You can always check his dental records.”

  “No.” Dante shook his head. “We need to get a death certificate so Em and I can claim his estate. Plus…” He closed his eyes.

  “Plus what?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to see my father any more decomposed than I have to. Erin, we have to do it now.” He turned to River and nudged him. “When do you have to go into work tonight?”

  “I don’t.” He cleared his throat. “I…made arrangements to have tonight off.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to take any personal days because of the—” Dante stopped abruptly.

  I knew the words he didn’t say.

  River had “made arrangements.”

  He’d glamoured his boss. But what about—

  “Jay?”

  “I’m sorry, Erin,” River said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  Dante went rigid, and for a moment, I was afraid he would shout. But he backed off.

  “He’s right, Erin. We need to do this. Tonight.”

  “But the vampires…” Lucy began.

  “We know what to expect this time, and we know where the body is. We’ll be quick about it. My father will be with us, and my mother too.”

  “Aren’t they both dead?” Lucy said.

  Dante and I both looked to River.

  “I didn’t get around to telling her everything,” he said. “But I guess you just did.”

  “What are you keeping from me?” Lucy asked, glaring at River.

  River spouted out the truth about Dante’s father in a rush of nearly incomprehensible babble.

  “Seriously,” she said. “You need to wait. I can scent this bastard out in wolf form. I can keep him away from you while—”

  “No, sweetie,” River said. “Not tonight. You stay here. We’ll be in and out as quickly as we can. We know where we’re going this time.”

  I turned to Dante. “Is there any way you can get my smell off of you? They’ll have no reason to follow you if they don’t smell me.”

  “Not that I know of. But don’t worry, baby. Like Riv said, we’ll be in and out in a flash.”

  In and out in a flash.

  Why didn’t I believe that?

  Chapter Twelve

  Dante

  The moon shone above us as we stood outside St. Louis Cemetery once again.

  “I’m coming into the cemetery with you tonight,” my father said.

  “You can’t,” River said. “It’s more important that you hold the glamour on the guard and anyone else who comes along.”

  “I’ve taken care of that,” he said.

  “How?” My first thought went to Bill. He’d arranged for his father to be there to keep everyone glamoured. The idea gnawed at me. I didn’t want Bill there. He couldn’t know why we were doing this—to get the money to find out what was in the Vampyre Texts.

  “Just leave it to me,” he said.

  “Please don’t tell me that Bill—”

  “I said leave it to me.”

  I’d learned long ago not to question my father when he used that tone. The tone that said “I’m in charge here and I don’t owe you any explanation.”

  Except that I was a grown man now, and I deserved an explanation.

  “Sorry, Dad. That’s not going to fly with me anymore. You’re still my father. I get that. But River and I need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  “All right.” He sighed. “I had the voodoo priestess cast a protective shield around the cemetery. It will keep everyone out but us. No v
ampire is getting in, and no guard or other human either.”

  “Which voodoo priestess?” River frowned. “Oh, no. You don’t mean that crazy lady from Claiborne Bridge.”

  “Really, Dad? I have to agree. Her hocus-pocus won’t protect us. Riv and I can act quickly, but we can’t take the chance of being stopped like last night.”

  “I did a little research. And by research, I mean I talked to a few ghosts still on this plane. They all know her. I was right. She is a medium, and a powerful one. I’m not sure she even knows this, but her power comes from the ghosts who speak to her and inhabit her. That extra energy amplifies her own, and her spells rarely fail.”

  “Extra energy?”

  “Ghosts are pure energy,” he said. “We no longer have a body to keep alive, so all of our energy can be used for other purposes.”

  “You can’t be serious,” River said. “What did she charge you for this service?”

  “Not much. Just a romp in the hay with both of you.”

  A burp of acid lodged itself in my throat. I gulped back the nausea in time to see my father’s ghostly eyes twinkling. He was kidding.

  Thank God.

  “Come on. I know you’re bonded to Erin, and”—he turned to River—“you’ve got the hots for that cute little wolf.”

  “For a minute there I was pretty shaken up.” River laughed, sort of. It was more of a nervous chuckle.

  “Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I’ve lost my sense of humor.”

  River and I stood with our mouths agape, looking at each other. What were we supposed to say to that?

  “Man,” my dad said, “and I thought I was the stiff here.”

  “Dad…”

  “For Christ’s sake, Dante. Laugh a little. Death is just a part of life. This night’s activities are going to be somber enough.”

  “You still haven’t told us what you gave Bea to do the protection spell.”

  “Nothing. Nothing yet, anyway. But I did tell her she’d be well compensated later.”

  “That can’t be. She’d never agree to that.”

  “She did while she was inhabited with Shakespeare’s ghost. I explained why we needed the spell, and she agreed. Especially when I told her what was in it for her.”

  “She agreed? Or Shakespeare?” I tilted my head slightly. Why would Shakespeare want to help us? And why was I even believing all of this crazy talk?

  “Does it matter? As long as we’re protected.”

  He had me there. I just hoped he was right for believing Bea. I didn’t trust the so-called priestess. But I did trust my father.

  River apparently agreed about Bea. “We’d better get to it. You really trust Bea’s spell?”

  “I do,” he said. “I admit I had my doubts before I talked to the others. But she’s a medium. Ghosts who have been gone a long time and can no longer appear on the earthly plane still have a conduit through her. You were right. She wasn’t speaking when she quoted Shakespeare. That was Shakespeare.”

  “I’ll be damned,” River said. “Really?”

  “Really. I was skeptical at first. But I was able to inhabit her and speak through her. Then I knew for sure.”

  “You went…into her?” I said.

  “Don’t make it sound so disgusting, Dante. You can see me, but I don’t actually have a body anymore. There was no touching of any kind. And speaking of my body…”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We entered the cemetery, the moonlight streaming over the concrete vaults. It was a clear night, and with our acute vision it was almost as good as daylight. I trudged along in the lead, winding around the vault of Marie Laveau and toward the corner where Lucy, in wolf form, had stood on the grassy knoll.

  We beamed our flashlights onto the area in question.

  “Amazing that it doesn’t look disturbed,” I said.

  “Makes me wonder if there’s someone who didn’t want your body found, Uncle Jules,” River said. “The cop in me smells a rat here. You’ve only been dead a few weeks. If your body is truly under here somewhere, someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like it’s not.”

  “It’s here,” he said. “Vivienne knows somehow, and I trust her.”

  “I guess we start digging, then.” I pulled my arms out of the sleeves of my duster and tossed it on the ground. “Let’s take up the sod first so we can put it back down in one piece.”

  River and I edged our shovels around the sod and carefully pulled it away from the ground. This took some time, as we needed to put it back so it wouldn’t look disturbed. When we finally got the roughly six-by-six-foot patch removed and carefully placed adjacently, we dug in.

  My shoulders were cramping from the hard work. I needed to get in shape. Lying in captivity hadn’t done a lot for my muscle endurance. They were still big and strong—because of the blood she forced me to drink, according to her—but they hadn’t been worked in a while.

  Still, I kept going, pushing myself, digging deeper and deeper, wanting to find what we were searching for…and not wanting to just as badly.

  “Damn. Are you sure it’s here, Uncle Jules?” River asked, wiping sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve.

  “I’m sure. Keep going.”

  We’d gone down about six feet at this point, my head barely able to see out of the hole, when my shovel hit something. “Hey, Riv. I got something here.”

  About fifteen minutes later, we were hoisting a body-sized plastic bag out of the ground.

  “You ready for this?” River asked.

  I turned to my father. “Are you?”

  “What we see won’t affect me. The body is no longer mine. You see me the way I was because that’s how it makes sense to you.”

  “I can’t deal with your noncorporeal supernatural lingo right now, Dad. Do we look or not?”

  “You won’t know for sure if you don’t look.”

  “Why should we? You say it’s you. Why can’t we just take it to the coroner and have Riv work his magic?”

  “Can you live with that?”

  My father’s words—the words of a ghost—shook me. Could I?

  No. I needed to be sure. I needed to see my father’s dead body, even knowing it would haunt me forever.

  “Help me, Riv.” I tugged at the plastic tarp covering the body.

  His feet were revealed first. Just as well. Easy. They were bare, though, which was odd. Surely he’d worn shoes when he escaped. We hastily removed the tarp.

  And I held back a heave.

  My father’s whole body was naked.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. I was wearing clothes when I died.”

  His nudity didn’t bother me. The injuries on his body had caused my reaction.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “It’s okay. There’s no more pain where I am now, Dante.”

  “But they hurt you. They never touched my body in this way. They used clamps and electricity. The pain was unbearable. But this…” I choked. “You went through so much.”

  “And I’d do it again to save you.”

  Lesions covered his body. Burn marks. A jagged scar cut diagonally through his once handsome face had clearly blinded one of his eyes. His genitals had been…

  I had to look away.

  “It’s okay, son. There is no more pain.”

  No. Not for him. But for me? “Who took your body, Dad? Who removed your clothes and wanted me to see this?”

  “I don’t know, Dante. I wish I did. I’d make sure whoever it was paid dearly.”

  I gulped. How could I deal with this image I would never be able to unsee?

  This was what he went through because he went after me?

  And God…River.

  If my father’s body had been battered in this way, what were they doing to Braedon’s at this very moment?

  “I hope he’s dead,” River whispered, his voice strangled. “I can’t bear the thought…”

  “Don’t think that w
ay,” my father said. “Brae wants to live, and he’s strong. Stronger perhaps even than I was. We’ll find him.”

  “How? If you have no connection to your own body, how can you have a connection to him?”

  “Because he’s alive. He still has a life-force, and the connection between twins is unequaled. We’ll find him, son. I promise you.”

  Though he used the word “son,” he was talking to both River and me. Uncle Brae and he had often used the term when referring to us both.

  “How—” I cleared my throat to erase the hoarseness. “How were you able to get out when you were so…” I shook my head.

  “I was determined, Dante, just as you were. And I had the dream of your mother to guide me, to give me the strength I required. I knew I had to do it. For you.”

  “But I—”

  “You’ll understand when you have children of your own.”

  My father had said those same words to me before, and again, the image of Erin handing me a vampire child morphed in my mind.

  I shook my head to clear it. I couldn’t deal with that impossibility now.

  “I’m sorry you have to see my body this way,” he continued, “but you would have always wondered. You’re strong. Both of you. The memory of what you see tonight will only make you stronger.”

  I swallowed down the last of my grief for what my father had endured. It was in the past now. The present was what mattered. Finding Braedon. Finding the vampire who had done this to my father, my uncle, and me.

  Finding the truth.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Erin

  I was a wreck at work most of the night. Luckily, it was a slow night. I didn’t trust myself except on the easiest of cases. I could mend boo-boos all right, and I did my share of them. During my breaks, I checked in on Lucy, who slept soundly. No sirens meant I didn’t have to imagine Dante’s body coming in on a stretcher.

  Dante.

  He was in a cemetery recovering his father’s body.

  The shift was almost over. No vampires had come in to stalk me, and though I should want to get home, I didn’t.