Twilight Guardians

by Maggie Shayne

“Mariah! Jesus, you scared the hell out of me!” Charlie pressed both hands to her chest.

  “Yeah, well, better than letting you touch that fence,” Mariah said. “Watch.” She looked around, picked up a length of tree branch that had fallen, then carefully positioned the bottom of the branch on the ground, holding it perfectly upright near the fence. She leaned the branch slightly toward the fence, then let it go.

  It fell. It made contact. A shower of sparks and smoke made Charlie jump backward, one hand gripping Mariah’s arm to pull her back, too. The limb bounced off the wire and hit the ground, its top six inches black and smoldering.

  “There. See?” Mariah asked.

  “I see, I see. Jeez. Next time just tell me.”

  “You don’t seem to be the type who hears words. You have to see things to believe them.”

  “Do I?” She hadn’t thought about herself in those terms. It was fascinating to hear how others perceived her upon first meeting her. “You think I’m a skeptic?”

  “I think you’ve got some kind of deluded star-crossed notions about vamps as romantic, exciting figures. I think you’re in denial, maybe because you’re in love with the one who tried to kill you.”

  “You’ve been talking to Lieutenant Townsend, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “Well he’s wrong. I’m not in love with a freaking vampire. Don’t be dense. I just don’t think he was trying to kill me.”

  “The hell he wasn’t.” Mariah turned away, started walking the fence in the same direction Charlie had been going. “Come on, I’ll show you something I just love.”

  She didn’t answer, but she did follow along. It was too nice a night, and she was too wide awake to be in the barracks. Something about the night was calling to her, teasing her to stay awake and embrace it.

  She and Mariah walked in silence for quite a long time until the perimeter fence turned sharply right, cutting through the woods. “This is the end of the line. And this is what I wanted you to see, right up here, just a few more yards.” She picked up the pace, jogging a little. It was pitch dark outside, but Mariah was somehow anticipating every upthrusting root and vine, jumping them easily. Charlie realized she wasn’t going to be able to keep up after about three jogging steps, when she tripped and almost caught herself on that high voltage death trap of a fence. After that, she took her time, and when she finally caught up to Mariah, she was the only one out of breath.

  Mariah had stopped and was staring through the fence. There, in a perfect circle of pine trees, was a little pond. On the far end, a deer was leaning down to sip from the clear water. Bullfrogs croaked deep, somehow rhythmic songs, and an owl hooted in the distance. Charlie thought of Olive and Roxy, and there was an ache in her chest. God, could she actually be missing that crazy woman and her bizarre pet?

  Mariah said, “I want to sit by that pond. Maybe put my feet in the water, you know?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Mariah looked at her. “We don’t really get out of here much, and especially not alone. I mean, if the vamps knew about us, they’d hunt us down for sure.”

  “Has that always been the reason? ‘Cause, I thought up until that attack in Portland, everyone believed they were all dead.”

  “Everyone else, maybe. These guys, our commanding officers, they never believed it. They know stuff.”

  And lie about it. And conceal it from the public, Charlie thought. Maybe Roxy wasn’t such a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist after all.

  “But I’m gonna do it anyway. I almost can already. Watch this.” Mariah bent her knees, crouching until her backside almost touched the ground, and before Charlie could even ask what the hell she was doing, she sprang up. And up. And up. And then she came plummeting back down again, landing right back in the crouch where she’d started. She bounced upright again, her eyes sparkling. “How high did I get?”

  “I....” Charlie had to shake the shock away before she could even think clearly enough to answer. “I think your knees got level with the top of the fence. Maybe even a little above it.”

  “Yeah, that’s about what I thought. I come out here and practice all the time. And I work hard to get stronger. One of these times, I’m gonna be able to clear it. And when I do, I’m going swimming in that little pond.”

  “I’ll bet you will, Mariah,” Charlie said.

  Mariah sighed. “Oh, I know I will.” She looked around, pointed at an area where a fallen limb the size of a sofa lay. “I usually sit here for a while, watch the animals come and go and the fish jumping up to eat mosquitos. You want to?”

  “Sure. Why the hell not?”

  The four of them, Killian, two elder vampires, and one ageless mortal, stopped at the edge of the Oregonian Wilderness area, where the road they’d been following just abruptly ended. Signs everywhere proclaimed that this forest was protected from hunting, fishing, logging, and motorized vehicles of any sort. The sky above it, Roxy had found with a little more Internet sleuthing, included a very small no fly zone with a notation that nesting eagles were often disrupted by low flying aircraft.

  Right.

  Killian had felt Charlie’s essence more and more powerfully as they had driven to the edge of this forest. She was close, and everything in him was aching to just run to her. Yet the practical part of his mind knew that would be foolish and possibly even suicidal.

  “The no fly zone is so far into the forest, there’s no way anyone would ever be likely to make it there on foot,” Roxy observed, looking at her map. “But if there’s a facility in these woods, that’s where it must be. Directly beneath it. Twenty miles, southeast.”

  “She’s in there,” Killian said. “I feel her. It’s strong.”

  “Then we have to go on foot,” Roland told him.

  Rhiannon stood beside him, stroking Pandora, who was sniffing the air and looking excitedly into the forest. She’d jumped out of the pickup the second it had come to a stop. Poor Olive was still stuck in the back, in her cage.

  “We can’t walk twenty miles on foot in any reasonable amount of time,” Roxy said.

  “You can’t,” Rhiannon told her. “But we can.”

  “She’s right,” Killian said, turning to Roxy. “I know you want to see for yourself that she’s okay, but you can’t go that far on foot. We’ll have to pour on the speed and run all the way.”

  “It won’t take long to reach the facility, if it exists,” Roland said. “Give us time to surveil the place and then get back. Two hours at the most. If we haven’t returned by then, Roxy, you should leave. Staying here too long might attract unwanted attention, and you don’t need that.”

  She nodded. “Especially not with a truck full of computers, untraceable cell phones and weapons.”

  Rhiannon’s eagerness faded, and a worried look marred her brow. “She’s right, Roland, we cannot risk her being caught with all of that. She shouldn’t wait here at all.”

  Roland nodded. “Go to the farmhouse you told us about, then. It’s a far better plan. We have the coordinates. We’ll meet you there once we’ve found what there is to find. All right?”

  Roxy nodded, went to the truck, then returned and handed a matchbook to Killian. He opened it and looked inside, where there was a phone number. “Call me if you need anything. I’ll keep this phone with me.”

  “Perfect. Good thinking.” Killian tucked the matchbook into his pocket, and turned to face the only vampires he’d seen in more than two years. “What about Pandora?”

  “Pandora goes where I go,” Rhiannon said. “Don’t worry, she’ll keep up.”

  He didn’t want to argue with her, and probably wouldn’t have even if he did. Rhiannon was the oldest vampire he’d ever encountered, and therefore the most powerful. He didn’t need to ask anyone to know these things. They emanated from her body like sparks from a Fourth of July sparkler. Roland gave off the essence of great power as well, but his was calmer, steadier. More like a glowing light than a shower of sparks. And yet K
illian didn’t feel threatened or intimidated by either of them. They were like a reflection of what he was. And what he could be, if he survived as long as they had. And he liked what he saw. The grace and the confidence. The power. All of it.

  Roxy went to the pickup and Killian followed, taking Olive’s cage out of the back and moving it into the front for her. Poor bird had probably had enough of jostling around in the bed. Roxy nodded her thanks to him, then with an unsteady smile, hugged him.

  “Charlie’s special, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “To everyone, not just to you.” She looked past him at Roland and Rhiannon, deep in conversation at the edge of the forest, then up into his eyes. “I had a recurring dream that told me I was unique and important, but that the blood of my blood would be even more so. She would be stronger, wiser, faster, a great warrior destined to save many lives. I had this dream over and over and over, ever since I was a little girl. Now, I’m the oldest living Chosen. That part about me being special came true. So I have no reason to doubt that the rest of the dream will come true as well. I have only one grandchild. Blood of my blood. She is a female, just as the dream predicted. There’s something more about her, Killian. She must be saved.”

  He blinked, stunned by Roxy’s words, but he nodded firmly all the same. “I’ll save her,” he promised. “Because I love her.”

  She nodded hard, patted him on the cheek, and then got into her pickup and drove away, her red taillights bouncing over the dirt road until they were out of sight.

  Killian faced the towering pines, the immensity of the forest, and he thought of Charlie. He saw her face in his mind and felt his heart whisper, I’m coming for you, Charlie. I’m coming for you, soon.

  Roxy drove her old, reliable truck along the winding road, amid forests so pristine you’d have thought them untouched by mankind. The towering conifers were more holy than church spires, she thought, and she tried to take some comfort in the power and beauty and longevity of them. They’d seen centuries of mankind’s petty troubles come and go. And they all must seem petty from the point of view of one so mighty, so ancient.

  It felt wrong to be driving away from Charlotte instead of toward her. Every instinct in her was urging her to turn around, to march through that forest to the secret base, storm the gates and take her granddaughter out of there. But she knew that was a job better left to those more suited to it. Hell, they’d probably have Charlie in hand and be back at the farmhouse before she could cover half the distance to that hidden base on her human, mortal feet. No, it was best she get her hind end out of there before she was seen and aroused suspicion. She trusted Roland and Rhiannon. And she trusted Killian. Not because she knew him or due to any sort of gut feeling. But because he was bound to Charlotte in a way Roxy would never fully understand.

  It was said that every human with the Belladonna Antigen had a vampiric protector with whom the natural bond was stronger, more potent than anything else known to exist. She’d seen it before. If usually resulted in a close friendship that would last beyond lifetimes. But when it was coupled with a powerful physical attraction, much less the tender buds of new love, it was a force beyond human imagining. She was convinced that Killian and Charlotte shared such a bond. They might not be aware of its strength. Certainly, Charlotte wasn’t. But she would be. It was unavoidable.

  Roxy had yet to experience that sort of thing herself. No vampire she’d ever met, and she’d met a lot of them, had felt like her own special one. No preternatural hand had sizzled on contact with her own. No mental bond. Nothing.

  Maybe she didn’t have a special guardian among the Undead. Maybe that was yet one more way in which Roxy was unique from others of her kind. Charlotte did, though. Her guardian was Killian. Roxy knew how this worked. He would do whatever it took to save Charlotte. There was no question. She didn’t think he could help himself if he tried.

  She contemplated these things as she drove down the forested mountain onto the narrow, still-deserted road that circled its base, and turned right. It was twenty miles to the new safe house. Roxy had several houses, cabins, cottages, even an apartment or two, in rural New York, in Maine, on the gulf coast of Louisiana, and here in Oregon. They were places she’d reclaimed for owed taxes, tumble-down houses that were all but abandoned. She’d bought them under many names not truly her own, because false identities were another thing she had in abundance. She knew how to stay off the grid. To fly by night. Mortal or not.

  With time and elbow grease, she’d fixed most of them up into livable quarters, and a few even had passable security systems. This wasn’t one of those few. It had been a turn of the century farmhouse, situated in the middle of a cleared meadow in the shadow of the nearby Blue Mountains. Because she’d spent the last several years here in Oregon, she’d visited it often, so the power was turned on, and it was within range of some of the strongest 4G signals in the state. That, of course, had been a requirement. She needed a reliable and fast internet connection at all times, Roxy did. Her hacking skills rivaled Homeland Security’s. She’d worked hard to learn what she needed to know to keep tabs on DPI. Not just to help the vampires who’d survived the US led worldwide effort to wipe them from existence, but for her own sake. And for Charlotte’s. Because when the Undead were eliminated once and for all, the governments would train their sites on those humans who could become vampires. The Chosen. It was inevitable. They would want to make sure vampire kind could never again become a threat.

  She thought it was happening right now, far sooner than she’d expected. They’d taken her Charlotte. They’d taken others. Their offers of protection were nothing but bait for their cruel trap.

  The farmhouse was only a few miles further now, and she was starting to relax a little. She’d released the birds who were ready to return to the wild before they’d torched her cabin. The rest, she’d dropped off on the front step of a wildlife rehabber who would take care of them. Olive was out of her cage now, sitting on the front seat, waiting impatiently for her dinner.

  Roxy rounded a corner and came upon two cars, one with its nose planted in the other one’s front fender. They were blocking the road, but she would’ve stopped anyway when she saw that while one vehicle was empty, the other had someone inside–a woman, slumped over the steering wheel. Maybe the other driver had gone for help.

  Roxy brought the pickup to a stop but didn’t get out right away. Instead, she pulled up her current cell phone to call 911 in case no one else had. But she never finished making the call, because a man in a suit came up to her door with a giant of a gun aimed right at her head and another was on the other side. The woman who’d been slumped over her steering wheel got out of her car, also pointing a gun and walking forward, and when she glanced in her mirror, Roxy saw a fourth person approaching from behind.

  “Get out of the vehicle, Roxanne!” That was the guy on the driver’s side. Sagging jowls and all, the commandant himself. She’d seen him on the news. She must be hellishly important, she thought. “Don’t make us shoot you.” He was shouting, and not just so she could hear him through the closed window.

  She nodded and put her hands up, but pressed one foot to the truck’s door. When the man started to open it, she shoved hard, slamming the door into him, knocking him flat on his ass. “Fly Olive! Go!” she yelled.

  The owl didn’t hesitate. She leapt onto Roxy’s thigh and pushed off from there into the night sky. Roxy shifted into reverse and hit the gas simultaneously. The truck lurched backward and the suit behind it dove to one side, somersaulting into the ditch to avoid getting hit. The other two started firing. Roxy’s passenger side window exploded, then the windshield did too, but by then she was speeding backward down the road. She hit the brake and yanked the wheel to spin around 180 degrees, shifted into drive and stomped it. But she knew she wasn’t going to shake them. The truck was coughing, probably from bullets in the wrong places. The rear tires left rubber on the pavement before they caught. She grabbed t
he cellphone, hit the voice memo button, spoke rapidly into the phone.

  Something landed in the back, and another shot went off, shattering the rear window, and then a gun barrel pressed against her temple.

  “Stop. This. Truck.” A female voice, deep and dangerous. Roxy dropped the cell phone and kicked it underneath her seat. She shot a look in the rearview and saw the woman who’d been in the phony accident, one arm anchored inside the busted out rear window, her body braced against the cab. “Brake, Roxanne. Now.”

  Roxy wrenched the wheel instead, and the woman went flying across the pickup bed, hitting the side hard. She fishtailed, whipping the wheel back and forth to try to shake the woman off, but the bitch just kept coming and finally got a grip, thrust the gun through the rear window again and fired.

  Searing pain burned through Roxy’s thigh, and she drove smack into one of the majestic trees she’d been admiring only moments earlier. Blood pulsed from her leg as if it was a fountain. She needed both hands to press against it. She was Belladonna positive. She’d bleed out fast. There would be no stopping it. Her hands were slick with blood as she pressed, one on top of the other.

  Her door was yanked open, a needle was jammed into her shoulder before she even whipped her head around to see Commandant Crowe. Then he faded into the color of his hair, and there was nothing.

  Charlie heard Killian’s voice as clearly as if he was standing beside her and whispering into her ear. Except he wasn’t. He was whispering inside her head, and shivers of desire and awareness and something like joy flooded through her at the sound of it. She reminded herself that he was the enemy and shot to her feet from the log where she’d been trying to enjoy the serenity of the night.

  “What? Did you hear something?” Mariah got up too, looking into the woods, her eyes narrow and searching.

  “I thought, I...I thought I did, but....” Charlie shook her head. “I guess I imagined it.”

  But Mariah wasn’t relaxing. She was still looking around, wide eyed. “They can talk mentally, you know. Vamps, I mean. I don’t think humans are supposed to be able to hear them, though. Is that what it was? That vampire that’s after you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what it was.” She looked into the trees outside the fence, thinking she knew exactly what it was, and who it was, and rubbed the goose bumps off her arms. “Let’s get back, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, okay. But you need to tell me what you heard. A twig snapping? A voice? What?”

  “A bird. I think it was just a bird.” But she knew better. It had been him, it had been Killian, and it felt as if he was close by. He said he was coming for her. Was that a threat? Was he going to try to get in here and finish what he’d started? She tried again to recall the events of that horrible night of her accident. Not waking in his arms outside the hospital and panicking and twisting free and running from him, but before that. He’d been with her, inside her hospital room. He’d leaned over her, and he’d been squeezing that wet sponge into her mouth because she was so thirsty and she knew she was going to die if she didn’t drink.

  Drink, he kept telling her. Only not out loud.

  Inside her mind. Exactly like what he’d said to her just now. And like the dreams, especially that most recent one. It was real, then. It was real. He was close. He could speak to her with his mind. And he was coming for her.

  She thought back, fighting to remember. If he’d wanted to kill her, he’d have just sucked her dry right then, wouldn’t he? Why would he feed her water from a sponge?

  Only...it hadn’t been a sponge.

  It had been...it had been his arm.

  She blinked rapidly, searching her mind as the memory came.

  He’d held his arm to her lips while she sucked eagerly, hungry for every drop. It had been his arm, and the liquid she’d been gulping so greedily hadn’t been water at all.

  Oh my God, it was blood!

  What did it mean? What did that do to her? She wasn’t a vampire, that was for sure. She’d been out in the sun all day today, after all. She poked at her incisors with her tongue just to be sure. And yes, they were still their normal size and shape. She didn’t slice her tongue open on them. They had not elongated or grown razor sharp the way his had been when he’d tasted her.

  Oh, God, passion rippled through her body again just remembering that...him inside her, that delicious pinch on her neck, and the way he’d sucked her skin between his teeth.

  He drank her blood. And then he fed her his.

  What had he done to her then? What did it mean?

  She’d been dying in the hospital, she was sure of that. She’d felt herself teetering on the edge of oblivion and unable to find a foothold. She knew she’d lost a lot of blood in the accident. Bits of conversation from the paramedics, the ER nurses, the doctors, came floating back to her, disjointed, but real.

  ...lost too much blood...

  ...rare type. Nothing in stock.

  ....checking with the Red Cross and local hospitals...

  Maybe someone else in her family....

  Why wasn’t she registered? Aren’t they all supposed to be registered?

  Did you hear about that bystander who ripped off the car door, when none of the firefighters could get it open?

  Yes, she’d been near death. But afterward, when she’d run from Killian to that dark van with LT, she’d been awake, alert, and strong. Stronger by the minute. No longer dying.

  Charlie came to a complete halt in her rapid-paced march back to the barracks and stood there, blinking in shock. Could it be that Killian had not come to the hospital to take her life, but rather to save her life? Had he been the stranger who’d torn off the jammed car door so they could get her out?

  It was at that precise instant that she felt him close to her, like a warm finger tracing a path up her spine. She turned to look beyond the fence and found him without even hunting for him. He was crouched behind a tree, looking right at her. Their eyes locked, and everything in her seemed to lean toward him, to reach for him. Her body craved his like...like his craved blood, she thought.

  “We have to cut back through the trees to the road,” Mariah said suddenly. “My pager’s vibrating. LT must be looking for us. I’ll be in trouble for sure.”

  “I um...I think I need to sit for a while. I’m all worn out. Not strong like you.”

  “You can be, though.”

  She nodded, not wanting to get into that discussion right then. “Go ahead, Mariah. Tell LT I slipped out and you came looking for me. I’ll back you up. Besides, it’s the truth.”

  Mariah frowned at her and looked around as if she expected to find someone else lurking in the forest. Charlie sensed Killian’s withdrawal. He wouldn’t be seen, not if he didn’t want to be. Mariah finally seemed satisfied that no one else was around. “I can’t just leave you here.”

  Charlie wanted her out of there, and she wanted it now. Her temper sparked to life in a way completely unlike her. “I’m not one of you obedient little recruits, Mariah. I’m going home in the morning. And I didn’t ask your permission. I’m staying put, and when I fucking feel like coming back to the barracks, I’ll come back to the barracks. Now get out of here.”

  Mariah’s face turned angry. “You’re too stupid to be one of us,” she snapped. “You wouldn’t make it a day. I hope your Goddamn vampire comes back and eats you.”

  So do I, Charlie thought.

  Mariah stomped off through the trees. No sooner was she out of sight, than something seemed to fall from the darkness and hit the ground right beside Charlie, making her jump backwards, trip over a limb and land ass-first on the ground. Heart racing, she watched Killian as he straightened up. His eyes searched hers as he grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet and flat against his chest, wrapping his arms around her. And then he kissed her like there was no tomorrow. No hello, no preamble, no apology or explanation. Just the kiss.

  And she responded, because the touch of his mouth was too much
to resist. Heat rose through her while he held her against his cool body. His tongue tasted minty and sweet all at once. They devoured each other for a solid minute. Maybe longer. And then he pulled back, stared down at her. “Wrap your arms around my neck, and I’ll get you out of here.”

  “Charlie!” That was LT’s voice, shouting through the woods, no doubt being led right back to her by that back-stabbing Mariah.

  “You have to get out of here.” She pushed his chest, backing him away from her and regretting it with everything in her. No time to ask the questions burning in her mind, no time to ask him to explain. She didn’t know if he was good or evil. She only knew her body ached for his, and that they would kill him if they found him. Every recruit in this camp was trained to kill vampires. “Go, Killian, hurry.”

  “Not without you.” He was beautiful against the night and the giant trees. As natural as if he was a part of the nocturnal forest. That long, swept back, mink brown hair mimicking the swirls and twists of the rugged bark, his eyes gleaming like stars in the night sky. Her hands were running up and down his back and arms like they had minds of their own, her eyes devouring his face.

  “They’re letting me go anyway, Killian,” she managed to tell him. “First thing in the morning. But if they catch so much as a whiff of you, they’ll search the woods until they catch you. And then they’ll kill you. Please, just go.”

  “I can’t–”

  “Charlie?” LT called. He was closer now. Too close. “I’ve heard from your family, Charlie. Where are you?”

  She looked toward where his voice was coming from and could hear his crashing footsteps through the woods and undergrowth now. “Just jump back over the damn fence, will you? You can come right back in again once I get rid of him. Please?”

  He shook his head, but he did back away, vanishing into the nearby trees and brush like a ghost. She strained her eyes, but it was impossible to see. He was too well hidden. And everything in her ached with the loss of his nearness. How could she want someone this much? It wasn’t normal. It was supernatural. It had to be.

  LT came out of the trees behind her. “There you are! What the hell are you doing out here?”

  Charlie turned his way and told herself to be casual. Not defensive. Not sarcastic. Not rebellious. Just casual. “I was walking. Getting some air. I don’t sleep well at night. But you know that. It’s a BD thing, isn’t it?”

  He sent her a skeptical look, then scanned the trees all around her, not even trying to hide his suspicions.

  “What, you think I’m out here meeting someone? I’ve only been here a day, LT. And while a man in uniform is a guaranteed chick magnet, even I don’t work that fast.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t crack a smile at her little joke. Though he did, apparently, choose to believe her. His face was grim, though. “I have news about your family. It’s not good, Charlie.”

  All her defiance left her like air from a punctured balloon. “What do you mean, it’s not good?”

  “Just come with me, all right?” He took her arm, not firmly, just gently. Like he was a grown-up and she, a little girl in need of guidance. It pissed her off. She’d spent her entire life being treated like a fragile child. She’d had enough of it. If all of this bullshit going on lately had done anything positive, it was to show her that. She was done being protected. Finished letting other people tell her what to do, and how to live her life.

  But for Killian’s sake, she let LT lead her back through the woods to the road where a Jeep was parked. Mariah sat in the back, waiting.

  “What’s going on, LT?” Charlie asked. “Why the big dramatic build up? What have you heard from my grandmother?”

  “Nothing. She’s missing. We have reason to believe she’s been taken–”

  “Taken?” Her skepticism rang clear in her voice, but it was followed rapidly by a shiver of fear. “Taken by whom?”

  “The vampire that tried to kill you. Who the hell do you think?”

  The one she’d just seen, not five minutes ago? The one she’d been kissing like she wanted to swallow him whole? That vampire? No fucking way.

  LT jumped into the driver’s seat, and Charlie took the spot beside him. “If my grandmother is missing, trust me, it’s because she wants to be missing. She has this thing about staying under the radar. You already know that about her.”

  He quickly turned the Jeep around, then punched it so they were bounding over the road back toward the camp’s center, then he stopped sharply in front of a building she hadn’t been inside before. He got out, reached for her hand to help her out as well, and Mariah jumped out of the back.

  Charlie crossed her arms over her chest and sat where she was. “I’m not moving until you tell me what makes you think some vampire has kidnapped my grandmother.”

  LT lowered his extended hand. And his head, too. “I...I don’t know how to tell you this. Your mother....” He looked up again as her stomach tied itself into a knot. And then he said it, the words that changed everything. “Charlie, your mother is dead.”

  Her soul turned to ice, she could feel the crackling coldness forming all through her. His words didn’t sink in too deeply, because she refused to let them. Her brain sealed itself in frost and bounced them right back to their sender, registering only that they made no sense. They did not compute. “That can’t be true,” was all she said. It was a knee-jerk response. She didn’t choose the words, they just erupted. “There’s no way that’s true. There’s no way.”

  “I’m sorry, but it is. We’ve been trying her cell phone all day. The last time I did, a police officer answered. He was in her apartment. When your mother didn’t show up for work, a co-worker went to check on her and found her.”

  The words were penetrating now, still not making sense though. “Found her?”

  “Lying dead on the floor of her apartment, two puncture wounds in her neck, her body drained of blood.”

  “No. No, that doesn’t make any sense. Why...? She doesn’t even have the antigen. Why her?”

  “Because of you,” Lucas said. “It was him, Charlie. There’s no doubt.”

  “No.”

  LT pulled out his phone. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. So I had the officer send proof.” Then he showed it to her.

  Hands shaking, she took the cell phone from him and forced her eyes to focus on its screen. There was a photograph of her mother, lifeless, lily white, on the familiar beige carpet of her home. She recognized the coffee table and sofa nearby. Her mother’s eyes were slightly open. There was no faking the sunken, drying look of them. The look of death.

  Nor was there any mistaking the marks on her pale neck. She’d seen them before, after all, on her own.

  Charlie’s hands went numb. The phone fell from them, landing on the ground with a dull thud. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “A man matching the description of the one who took you from your hospital bed was seen leaving the building. The landlord gave us a positive ID when we showed him a photo we took that night,” LT said. He spoke slowly, like he was giving his words time to sink in.

  “Are you sure?” she whispered, and turning slowly, she looked back toward the woods where he’d been. But Killian wouldn’t be there now. Not now.

  “There’s no doubt. I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. Tears for her mother and for her own guilt. My God, what had she done?

  She should tell them where he was.

  But no. If she told them she’d been meeting with a vampire inside their supposedly secret camp, they might withdraw their invitation to join them. Bending her knees, she recovered the phone, looked at the photograph again, this time searching for any signs it had been faked. But no. Her mom’s mouth was slightly open. The gold cap on one tooth was there in plain sight. This wasn’t a doctored image, because they wouldn’t have known to include that detail. And the book on the coffee table was one her mother had started reading only the day before Charlie had left with Roxy
.

  Lucas took the phone from her. Mariah came closer, put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders, her earlier anger apparently forgotten. “I’m so, so sorry. I tried to tell you. But we’ll get him for this. We will, Charlie. And we can.”

  Charlie nodded, shock and grief, regret and shame warred with anger for control of her mind. She looked down at the cell phone in Lucas’s hand, its nightmare image still filling its screen. Her mother’s lifeless eyes stared back at her, silently begging for justice.

  Anger won.

  She looked at Mariah, then at LT. “I’m in,” she said. “Give me the damn drug. How long will it take to make me strong enough to kill him with my bare hands?”

  “Not long,” LT said. “Not long at all, Charlie.”

  Chapter Eleven