by Kate Martin
“It’s no fun when they don’t fight,” the Jamaican vampire pouted, threading her gold laced chain through her gloved fingers.
“Sorry to spoil your night.” She was almost close enough. I didn’t want to place all my chips on a long-shot bet. Better to have a closer target.
Heaving a sigh, she hooked her chain to her belt and pulled out a small knife. “Do promise me you’ll at least scream.”
“Sure thing.” Three more steps. That should be enough.
One.
Two.
Three.
I moved, and apparently she hadn’t actually believed I would stand still, because she lunged in the same moment. I, however, hadn’t planned on going for a frontal attack. I slid past her legs, jumped back to my feet and slammed my dagger into her back, right through her spine, aiming for her heart.
She went rigid, hands spasming and dropping her knife. I twisted my blade and drove it in up to the hilt—
—Then realized I had no idea what to do next.
A pair of hands that weren’t mine grabbed her head, and pulled. It came clean off, and when the head was lowered I found myself staring into familiar grey eyes.
“Hey, Cade,” I said, as the body dropped to the ground. Well, that explained what happened to the other vampire.
“Hello, Kassandra.”
“Out for a walk?”
He nodded. “As it seems you are.”
“Well, you know me. Always one for exercise and fresh air.”
Dare I think he smiled? No. It must have been a trick of the darkness. “Would you like to finish your kill?” he asked, dropping the head so that it landed beside the twitching body.
“Excuse me?”
“Tear out the heart.”
“No thanks.”
Cade bent down, pulling my dagger from the vampire’s back and wiping it off along her pants before handing it to me. “Keep track of that.”
“Sure thing.” I turned my back so I wouldn’t have to watch. Besides, Solo was still fighting. I could hear the ring of steel against steel.
“You have the map?” Cade asked against the sound of tearing flesh.
I choked back my fruitless impulse to gag. “Yes.”
“Good.”
Not twenty feet away, Solo’s blade flash through a patch of light, once, twice, three times. Assorted thuds followed. Then the flick of a lighter. He faced me as the body caught fire, the flames creating moving shadows that challenged the stationary shadows of the park lights.
I charged him. Brought him down right beside the dismembered body he had set aflame, grabbing him by the collar and leaning all my weight and strength into him. “Get talking.”
He coughed. Dramatic, since we didn’t actually need to breathe. “Easy, Kass. Jeeze. Is that anyway to thank me for my help?”
“I’m not so sure you helped anything yet. Thanks to you my trade went down the drain, and I doubt they’ll be open to renegotiation. So you had better have a solution to my problem.”
“Wanna put the fangs away first?”
“No.” My voice growled.
“How about the gold-plated dagger digging into my shoulder?”
I glanced at my hand. Sure enough, I had my dagger laid across his left shoulder. His shirt protected him from the worst of it, but now I could see the tight line of pain his mouth had become. There was blood dripping from his throat, but I was pretty sure that hadn’t been from me. I slammed my dagger into the ground beside his head. One wrong shake and he would get the gold blade across his face. “Better?”
“Oh, much. Thanks.” Drawing a deep breath, his chest rose and fell beneath me, then he shimmied a bit, as if trying to get comfortable. “You’ve really done a grand job training her, Cade. Sure you don’t want to join in?”
I could hear Cade moving the burning bodies. Collecting them into one place, perhaps. “She seems to be doing a good enough job on her own. Though I would advise her not to break your jaw before she gets the answers she wants.”
“Good point,” I said. My blood was singing, burning, and I didn’t care.
“All right, Kass, uncle. Okay? I’ll tell you what I know, but you have to promise me something first.”
“Not likely.”
“It’s a simple request.”
“Let’s hear it then.”
“This,” he whispered, lifting his arm so I could see the band around his right wrist, “stays between us.”
His Hunter’s mark. I supposed it wouldn’t do for the vampires to know there was a Hunter in their ranks. “Fine. Deal. Talk.”
“Remember how I told you I can see things when I drink the blood of another vampire?”
My finger twitched where he had tasted my blood the other night, discovering that I knew his connection to my past life. “Yes.”
“My sire, Thera, she was completely psycho, always playing blood games, hunting the first thing she saw—she was depraved and much like the stereotypical vamp the humans think we all are. Anyway, she used to include me in her games, and one night I got a taste of her blood, rather than the other way around. She had just come back from some grand hunt that had left her high and energized. When her blood got in my mouth I saw everything. She had stalked a Council Member’s mate, led her away from the safety of the pack. Thera drew her out with false letters and clues from a long lost brother. When she finally had her, Thera captured her, tortured her. Tore her apart, put her back together, and did it all over again. She only killed her days later after boredom had set it. Then she returned to me. When I saw all that, I—I couldn’t endure her presence any longer. I killed her that night, and set out on my own.” He looked up at me then, eyes sad, and resigned. “I could see everything. Even a name. Lydia.”
Proof. My proof. The solution to all the hell I had faced for the past months. Rhys’s key to that cold, poisoning cell. It had been with me the entire time.
I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him to the ground. Hissing, I leaned in until our faces nearly touched. “You knew! You knew the whole time, and you didn’t tell me!”
His hands remained at his sides, passively not fighting me. “I didn’t know. I swear. I didn’t know for certain until you said the name Lydia just now.”
“But you suspected!”
“I’m a Hunter, Kass,” he hissed, his voice so low Cade wouldn’t hear. “It’s not my job to save demons, it’s my job to see them dead. I had no reason to reveal what I knew.”
I tightened my grip on his throat. “Then why tell me now?”
“To save another Hunter. To save you.”
“I am not a Hunter.”
“You will be.”
I nearly crushed his throat then. It wouldn’t have killed him, but it would have kept him from talking. I needed him to talk. “And you’re sure about this?”
“Very sure.”
“And you’ll tell this to the others?”
“I’ll tell whoever you want.”
A bubble of hope rose inside me. “Did you hear all that, Cade?”
He came over to us, leaving behind his vampire bonfire. “I did. Everything but your whispering, that is.”
I couldn’t determine if he really hadn’t heard us, or if he was simply playing along. Either way, it seemed clear he would keep the secret, if he knew it. Cade stood over the both of us, arms folded over his chest, looking down at Solo as if he were a pest to be potentially squashed, unless he proved useful.
“How do we prove it?” I asked. “All we have is Solo’s word.”
“There is one person who can prove what he says is true.”
Sitting back, I let Solo breathe a bit, though I didn’t get off him. I had no intention of letting go of him, much less letting him out of my sight, until this was all cleared up and I had Rhys again. “Who?”
“The Council has a mind reader. We’ll bring him there. But first, I would like some proof of this ability he claims to have.”
“All I need is some blood,” Solo said. “I
’ll prove whatever you want. Just—could you ask her to get off me? She’s heavier than she looks.”
I punched him.
We stood outside my house, while Cade went inside to get the others. Solo refused to just walk into the ‘den of wolves’ as he put it, and wouldn’t step through the front door. When Millie and the others emerged with Cade, Millie was the first to rush to me, taking my hands in hers. “Is it true?”
“It’s true, Millie.”
“How does he know this?”
Solo seemed disinclined to answer the question himself, so I answered for him. “He can see things in our blood, when he drinks it,” I said.
“And you believe him?”
This next part had the potential to get me in a heap of trouble, but what was the worst that could happen? I was already scheduled for death. And if anyone else found out I had taken the map . . . “Yes. I, uh, I cut myself at my grandmother’s party and Solo, he . . .well . . . anyway, he saw–” I stopped. I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, that Solo had seen that I remembered being married to him, being a Hunter. “He saw some things about my past lives. Things he couldn’t possibly have known. I believe he can do what he says.”
Madge regarded Solo with a look of utter doubt. “And you can you prove this?”
Solo shoved both hands in his pockets. “My ability? Sure. Just bring on the blood and the secrets.”
Cade frowned. “If you are telling the truth, then a number of important facts could be inadvertently leaked to you during the process. No. We will need another way.”
“It doesn’t have to be yours, buddy. Kass could volunteer again.”
“No.” Cade put an end to that before I could even finish forming a response in my mind. “She knows too much. Once was risk enough.”
“I could do it,” Millie said. She stepped back from me, putting Brody at her side, as Madge and Isaac watched on from the porch. “I have a readily available secret, which should keep him from seeing much else.” She squeezed Brody’s hand. “Aurelia should be returning any moment, and if we have concrete proof to provide her, then you could leave right away. She’ll believe what you tell her, Cade.”
“Are you strong enough?” Cade asked.
Millie nodded, though she certainly didn’t look very strong at the moment. “I can handle it. The burns make things look worse than they actually are.”
Cade considered everything for an eternal moment, nearly driving me insane. We didn’t have this kind of time. But then he handed a knife that seemed to appear out of nowhere to Millie. “Keep your thoughts simple and focused.”
Taking the blade, Millie quickly made a small cut on her forearm. Blood welled to the surface, and she offered it to Solo.
Solo glanced at me before reaching out to steady Millie’s arm. I could tell this was killing him, working with us like this. I decided not to care. Rhys was all that mattered.
Cade caught him by the chin just before his lips touched Millie’s blood. “If you are revealed to be a liar, I will kill you where you stand. Is that understood?”
Solo jerked his head away. “Crystal clear. Do you want to keep wasting time?”
“Get to it.”
Without so much as another irritated look, or sharp remark, Solo bent down and licked the blood from Millie’s arm. It took him only a moment to interpret. “You accepted a proposal from your boyfriend over there a few weeks ago, but you’ve never said anything because neither of you felt it was the right time given the circumstances,” he said.
Millie blushed. Brody gasped, gaping at his apparent fiancé. “That’s what you think of?”
“I figured it was harmless enough. And no one else knew.”
Madge shouted something from the house, she sounded insulted, but I couldn’t spare the attention to decipher it.
“Congratulations,” I offered awkwardly.
I found myself suddenly wrapped up in one of Millie’s tight hugs. “Oh, Kassandra. I’m so sorry. We didn’t want to add to any of the confusion.”
“It’s okay, Mil. Really. I get it. And it works out, right? Solo proved his ability.” I twisted in her arms so I could see Cade.
“I am convinced,” Cade said. “Enough to bring him before the Council at least. I can hear Aurelia’s car approaching now. We will leave immediately. Millie, you and Madge stay here with Isaac, I will call when we know more.”
Millie looked about to argue, but didn’t. “All right. We can take care of things here.”
“Call Julius, tell him we are coming.”
Chapter Twenty-six: Blood Proof
We drove for hours. For so long that eventually I couldn’t even try to keep track of where we were going. The whole way Aurelia drilled me on etiquette, and history, and the workings of the Council. In short, I was to be seen, and not heard. They would do the talking.
Fine by me. I was so wound up I doubt I could have strung a coherent sentence together. Solo said nothing the entire way. Aurelia had insisted on blindfolding him—we couldn’t risk him knowing the location of the Council’s meeting place.
Finally, the car stopped, and we all climbed out. Cade kept close to my side, one hand wrapped around Solo’s wrist. “We run from here,” he said. “Stay close.” He took off so quickly, Solo in tow, that I almost didn’t follow. The blur he and the others created through the thick woods went nearly missed by my befuddled vampire senses, but I locked onto Cade and Solo’s scents and urged every muscle in my body forward.
I caught up easily enough, vaguely wondering if I had seen these trees before, smelled this strange air. The whole place seemed untouched, unlived in. I couldn’t hear a single animal in the brush, or bird in the trees. It was the afternoon now, and the sunlight speckled in through the leaves and branches, warming the forest. We broke through into a clearing the same moment my mind wandered away from thoughts of strangeness, and I crashed into Cade’s back.
Everyone had stopped.
A town. Buildings rose up, framed by the forest, made of brick and stone. They had a Victorian feel, with sweeping arches at the doors, and balconies on the upper floors. The main road ran straight and undisturbed for as far as I could see; at least the length of three football fields. People milled about, walking along the sidewalks, going from home to home, and shop to shop. Gardens had begun to sleep for the winter already, but there was still a pristine look to the rows and lattices that must have held numerous fruits and vegetables earlier in the year.
We began to walk, Aurelia and Cade both keeping close, Cade dragging the still blindfolded Solo along. A few of the people in the street spared us a glance or two, but most went on with life as if we were nothing out of the ordinary, nothing remarkable. We passed a group of women chatting nearby a store front, where the sign above their heads read BUTCHER, and chickens and other slabs of meat hung in the window. The wind shifted, and I caught their scents. One smelled of cinnamon, and another of fresh cut grass. The third was unmistakably human, and as she laughed at something one of the other women said, she lifted her hand to cover her mouth. Her wrist carried bite marks. Dozens of them. Some healed, others fresh.
I’d fallen behind. Scrambling to catch up, I pulled on Cade’s sleeve, whispering harshly, “Where are we?”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“I don’t mean where where.” He’d already made it quite clear that I could not know our exact location, much like with Infragilis. “I mean what is this place?”
Aurelia answered me instead. “This is Casbury. A vampire safe haven. Here many of our kind live together, along with humans who know the truth. Humans who have either been born into knowing, perhaps cultivated, or who have fallen into the knowledge and have chosen to serve. Your Warren lived here for a time.”
Warren. I looked at the faces of those we passed, some young, some old. How many had pasts like Warrens, filled with death and loss? How many were like that girl who had been brought to the house as a gift to Cordoba over the summer? A fine wine of human blood. The th
ought made me shudder.
Solo scoffed.
“We live here in peace,” Aurelia said, clearly unamused by Solo’s ill-expressed opinion. “It is a place where we do not need to hide what we are. And it is where the Council sits.”
We walked a while longer, along that long main street filled with people and vampires and life. Stores boasted everything one would need for the day to day, and while homes had been more common when we had first entered, shops and businesses dominated the center of the town. More streets stretched out from between those businesses, leading to more buildings that looked like homes, grand and large.
Finally we reached the end of the road, and looming before us was the largest structure the town had to boast. With pillars lining the front, and archways at every door and window, it looked much like a town hall, or a library. The red brick had been covered by years of vine growth and discoloration from the sun. The windows, however, sparkled in the light, crystal clear.
Neither Aurelia nor Cade stopped to give me any further warning before moving up the front steps, leading towards the huge double doors, painted white, and guarded by two vampires wearing the now familiar black uniforms.
They opened the doors for us without a word.
I held my breath, and stepped over the threshold of the vampire den. The next hour would change everything.
Our footsteps echoed in the entranceway, a great staircase rose before us, circling gently upwards, out of sight. On the walls, paintings from centuries before lined the hallway as we proceeded forward. One of a man with a long white beard, and piercing blue eyes, dressed in the style I had grown used to seeing in my memories as Bryn. The next, a woman with skin dark as coffee with cream, and hair black as the night. A single jewel sat upon her forehead, just between her eyes, and her body had been draped with red and gold silk. Then another man, dressed in little, with blue patterns painted onto his skin, whose coloring reminded me of Rhys. The next two paintings stopped me short. Golden and pale, the two faces looking back at me could have been drawn from my own memories. Sonya and Demitri. Only they weren’t wearing the crisp modern suits I had seen them in, but rather the medieval garb of royalty, trimmed in gold brocade and polished jewels. I hurried along to the next painting. Bartolome Cordoba, face scarred, just as I remembered, but dressed as the conquistador I knew him to have once been. A painting of the General hung beside his, and Julius Augustus looked every bit his name in those Roman robes. The last two were faces I had never seen before. One broad, with dark blond hair cut to his shoulders, and stormy grey eyes, leaning against an old Viking warship; and the other dark, with a shaved head, and deep brown eyes, his shoulders and arms lined with raised scars like tattoos.