Her Vampire Temptation (Midnight Doms Book 8) Page 19

  Lucius starts forward. “Attack–“

  But Alain puts up a hand. “This is between me and Karl,” he snaps. “We will decide it together. Right here, right now. This ends tonight.” He snarls at Karl, who howls a shriek of anger and rage.

  Lucius steps back. Nods to the other vampires. They form a loose circle around the three of us, but don’t approach. I assume they’ll step in if they need to.

  Karl’s fetid breath is still hot on my cheek, but his grip falters. Like he’s lost focus.

  I push Karl tentatively: His arms go slack, so I slither out of his grip. “Alain!”

  Alain takes me and blurs me over to Martin. “Guard her with your life,” he orders. He looks into my eyes. “Forgive me.” He squeezes my hand softly, and then he turns away from me.

  Martin grabs me and puts me between himself and Slash. I’m trembling with terror and adrenaline, barely able to stand, but I need to see. I push my head between Martin’s arm, so I can peek, hanging onto him and Slash as if my life depends on it. They both support me, and not one of the other vampires suggests that I be taken away. This moment is too critical to speak or interrupt.

  Alain and Karl fly at each other but stop a foot apart, as if pushed apart by opposing magnetic fields. It’s not a peaceful separation--it’s ugly, with power ripping and tearing and swirling around them.

  They stare at each other, as if they’re locked together; one being, although two parts. I can see the energy surging between their gazes. The bond between them intensifies until it’s like metal bands, binding them to each other with tentacles of steel. It’s mesmerizing and sick.

  Then they fly at each other again, howling and slashing. It’s fast and vicious and deadly. One of them is going to win, and the other will perish.

  Suddenly they stop short, as Alain puts up his hand, and I swear I can almost see a burst of energy circling around, forcing Karl back.

  Karl makes a little noise. Shudders once, as if cold. Then again.

  Alain keeps staring, his hand up. His body trembles, as if doing this—this stare—is taking up all his energy.

  And even though Alain wants nothing to do with me anymore, I’m desperate to help.

  I close my eyes and try to send him every possible piece of positive energy I have to help him beat Karl. And it’s not just because Karl wants to kill me. It’s because I lo—it’s because I care about making the world a better place, too. I want him to succeed with his medical research, even if I won’t be part of his life.

  You can do this. I believe in you. You’re stronger than he is. You run on love, not hate. Your love for people is what drives you. He can’t beat you.

  Alain’s eyes are glazed, his muscles so tight they might pop. I think he might have an aneurysm, if vampires can do that.

  Please. You can do this. I know you can.

  I’m starting to get weak from the effort to send these thoughts. With a burst of mental energy, I send all the power I have to join with him until I’m exhausted. I sink down, and Martin grabs me, props me up.

  Slowly, Alain stands stronger. Taller. He makes a hissing roar, a sound of growing power, and I sense that he’s beating Karl.

  Alain roars. And then, with a whirl of pure energy, so bright and hot that I can see streams of red and yellow pulsing in the air like fireworks, he flies at Karl. In a move so deft it seems magic, he pulls something from his inner coat pocket. It’s long, wooden stake, polished but with a wicked tip, that flashes in the light of his energy streaks. Moving like lightning, Alain jams the stake right through Karl’s heart.

  “I made you.” Alain’s voice is at once thunder and whisper. “And now I’m making up for that mistake.” He twists the stake. “Requiēscās in pace.”

  The words I recognize from high-school Latin: “May you rest in peace.” I can only assume Alain is speaking sarcastically or out of some ancient habit ingrained in his psyche because nobody here—I’m sure of it—wishes Karl peace.

  The noises coming from Karl are horrific. He twists like a serpent. Writhes. His body flashes green and black, like scales. Then goes still. His eyes are blank, empty. A second later, he’s dead.

  I scream and scream.

  “It’s done.” Alain’s voice holds a note of finality. “I said I would do it, and it’s done. Karl is dead. I corrected my mistake.”

  “Good.” Lucius’ voice is somber but pleased. “Take her away.” He gestures at me. “And clean this up.” His gaze, as it flickers over me, seems dispassionate. But I sense, perhaps, a tiny bit of empathy behind his gaze.

  Alain gives me a long searching look, as if he felt my help and is trying to understand. But he shakes his head.

  “It will be like it never happened.” Alain looks sad, and in that second, I know he’s done with me forever.

  The next thing I know, I’m back at my own home.

  Alain stands over me, his face showing regret, but his voice full of resolve. “I won’t wipe you because I know that will break your mind. But if you share details about us, other vampires will probably come for you.” He hesitates. “I’ll do what I can to keep you safe, but you need to keep the secret. I’ll tell Dr. A. to look at your wound. Don’t contact me or come to the club. We can’t see each other again. It’s better this way.” He touches me softly with one finger, just a brush down my arm. “Your life will be better now.”

  He stares at me for a long second. I feel like he’s about to say something else, but he just shakes his head. Gives me one soft kiss on the forehead. “Goodbye.”

  And he’s gone.

  Chapter 23

  Bri

  I’m home. And I’m alone.

  My heart breaks just thinking about him cutting me out of his life.

  And my angry words.

  It’s been two days, and it feels like it just happened.

  My wrist throbs under the gauze bandage, and I swallow hard. It’s getting better, but it still worries me. Dr. A. has me on a cocktail of three antibiotics and two antivirals, just in case. But she admitted she’s never seen a wound like this one and doesn’t know the long-term outlook.

  She doesn’t talk to me about Alain, and I don’t ask. Knowing she still interacts with him—even though he doesn’t want to see me—is excruciating. But I suppose I need to get used to it.

  I had a strange dream last night. I awoke to see Alain at my window, and I let him in. He held me and bit my wound, then even let me drink his own blood, or something—I can’t remember—and the pain faded. But when I tried to talk to him, he just shook his head sadly and disappeared.

  I don’t want to look at the wound, see that strange geode-like pattern of crystalized blood and venom, so I flip open my laptop and check the news over and over, obsessively.

  There’s nothing about the fight at all. Apparently, the vampires were able to wipe the minds of all potential bystanders effectively, if there were any. This is a relief, yet I can’t forget that although Karl is gone, the news also tells me that the missing women are still out there somewhere.

  And maybe they’re going to die in captivity.

  And it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t panicked and believed the fake phone call, if I’d just had the patience to wait like Alain asked me to—ordered me to—things could have turned out differently. Maybe they’d have been able to trick Karl, find the women’s location. Instead, Karl’s dead, and so are any leads he might have held.

  I breathe out and stare at my blackout blinds, imagining the world going by outside. Alain, of course, will be asleep. So will Slash and Martin and their powerful ally, Lucius. Vampires I’ve been told never to contact again.

  I miss Alain. I meant what I said, that I was better off without him. He’s complicated and weird, and there’s no way a human and an immortal could ever forge a life together.

  But I wish it could be otherwise.

  And if it can’t be otherwise, I wish we could have ended things on a positive note. I’m disappointed and heartbroken that he didn’t thin
k we were worth it. Didn’t want to keep me.

  Even if I can’t tell her the truth, I need K. She answers right away when I call. “Things suck,” I say, and break down into tears.

  She’s immediately concerned. “Bri, what’s wrong? Did the doctor call?”

  For a second, I think she means Dr. A., then I remember that she knows nothing about the events that transpired or about my weird second life. She’s just talking about my regular old problems. My XP.

  In fact, Dr. Su did call this very morning. “Yes, and the results are good. It’s clean. I don’t have any markers for cancer.” I take a deep breath. “They got it all...for now.” I don’t fool myself that this will last forever. Everyone knows that this disease gets progressively worse in 100% of the patients and that I’ll be lucky if my next test comes back clean. Still, it’s a reprieve.

  I’m so depressed about Alain that I barely feel any relief or joy at this news. I should be exultant at this chance for a new life. Instead, I feel like I got a death sentence.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I’m…Alain broke up with me.” That is but a tiny five percent of what’s really hurting me, but it’s the only thing I can tell her.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. What a dick. I’ll come over tonight with ice-cream. Okay? I’ll bring ice-cream and those pretzels you like and some wine, if you want wine, and we’ll sit there, and you tell me everything, and I’ll go fucking beat him up for you afterwards. Okay?”

  I laugh through my tears. “Okay.” I sniff. I miss her so hard it hurts. And at least I’m relieved that she and Mani are okay—there was no accident, of course. They’re both fine.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” she says. “I’m really glad you reached out.”

  I wipe my face. “Me, too.”

  “Listen, you just give me his license plate number, okay? I’ll bribe my brother to give him, like, a hundred parking tickets or something.”

  “I just want to be normal again. I just want to be normal.” I’m crying.

  “Bri, I’m really worried. What’s been going on?”

  I sniffle. I need to tell her something. But I can’t tell her the truth. “It’s just been—Alain meant a lot more to me than I meant to him, apparently. Now that he’s gone, I don’t know what to do. And I have a problem I can’t solve.”

  “A work problem?”

  “Yeah.” I can’t tell her the real issue. “But it’s Alain that I’m sad about.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you soon, and we’ll talk it over. I know you’ll figure it out, and everything will be okay.”

  K. is so sweet, so innocent, so hopeful. If she only knew the nightmare I’ve been living, she wouldn’t be half as upbeat.

  Then I realize: It’s K’s upbeat attitude that makes the nightmares livable. It’s that emotional, quick human response that makes us effective. I can’t forget that.

  Maybe Alain doesn’t appreciate my traits, but they’re what make me unique. And I don’t want to sell myself short.

  I fucked up. But I have a chance to fix things. Not with Alain; that’s over. But I can help find the missing women.

  I wasn’t able to be a doctor. Couldn’t do the right thing when it came to the fight with Karl. Messed up and believed the fake phone call. Always gave up on relationships in the past...

  I’m tired of being a quitter. I’m going to be a fixer.

  I can still help people in this moment.

  And I’ll be damned if I sit home when I could be out there trying my best to save some women in trouble.

  “K?” I tell her. “Can we hang out in a few hours or maybe tomorrow? I need to go running first to clear my head and process some stuff.”

  “Anytime, Bri. You just call me when you’re ready.” her voice is so kind. “Tonight or tomorrow, whenever. You just let me know.”

  “Thanks.” I hang up and sit looking at the phone.

  I take a deep breath because I know what I have to do.

  Bri

  I’m back at the house where the attack happened. Where Karl died.

  I thought I’d panic, but I’m strangely calm. Focused.

  The street is silent, and the house quiet. The sun is warm on my arms through the UV sweatshirt as I look for the pile of mail. It’s still there, uninterrupted. Seeing it sitting there almost makes me think the whole thing was a dream.

  I grab the envelope that intrigued me and rip it open. It’s a title to a house in Phoenix. And with every core of my being, I’m positive: This is where the women are being kept. Didn’t Karl say: “Take her to the house?” It must be this one.

  I immediately want to call Alain—but no. He told me never to contact him again. Anyway, he’s sleeping now, until nightfall. That’s just under two hours away…and the women might not have that long.

  I’ll go myself. I owe it to the women to do this.

  It occurs to me that I should probably call my tip in to the police. But they won’t do anything without probable cause; this much I know from TV shows. And what evidence do I have?

  You see, officer, there was a vampire fight the other night where I was injured, and one vampire was killed. I saw this envelope and committed mail fraud to find this address. No, no proof at all. It’s tied to the missing women; just a gut feeling. Oh, and you have to check it out now, during the day. Because other vampires might be involved, and they’ll come kill you if you visit at night.

  They’d brand me a crazy lunatic for sure. Might even put me into a seventy-two-hour psych hold at the hospital, which they have the right to do if a person seems insane and a risk to themselves or others. I shudder just thinking about it.

  I don’t have time to think of a legitimate story. I’ll go there, and if I find them, then I can call it in anonymously...

  The address is on the outskirts of Phoenix, far off the I-10, and down a country road. The closer I get, the more my unease grows. This is probably not a good place to be exploring alone. Feeling the need to provide myself at least some level of safety, I pull over and grab my phone.

  I bite my lip then send Alain a text. I know he can’t read it until he wakes up, and he told me never to call him again, so he might delete it unread. Maybe he doesn’t even have the same phone number, God knows, but I do it anyway. “I may need backup. Come here as soon as you wake up. I think the women are here.” I include the address.

  Then, just to be on the safe side, I send the same message to Slash and Martin. I’m pretty positive that Martin, at the very least, will have the same number. And Slash probably keeps tabs on all his old numbers because he’s data-crazy...so it’s a guarantee that at least one of the three will get it.

  I consider sending K. a “if you don’t hear from me in an hour call the police” message, but knowing her, she’d just call them immediately, and I’m not sure that’s the right thing. I certainly can’t wipe minds, and I don’t want to have to explain what the hell I’m doing here.

  After I send the messages, I continue on, and in fifteen minutes, I’m at the location.

  The house is boarded up, with wooden siding that’s so warped and blistered from the sun that it looks bleached. Weeds and bushes grow thick around the property, some dead and brown from the climate. There are no cars, no people, nothing. I see something rusted out next to the entry, like an old wheelbarrow, but it’s overgrown with bushes.

  The place is at the edge of a reservation and has no neighbors that I can see. There’s some barn structure miles away, across fields, but apart from that, I’m alone.

  I get out of the car and listen: Utter silence, except for a lone mockingbird in the twisted mesquite to the left.

  It’s eerie although the sun is bright and hot through my face mask, and there’s a gentle breeze that whishes through the dried bushes. I stick my car key in my jacket pocket, my phone in the other pocket.

  I walk slowly up to the boarded-up door of the house and stop, staring at it, trying to see if it looks recently used. It does not. There are sp
ider webs, thick, extending from the door handle to the wall, with leaves caught in them, and the carcass of some dried-out insect.

  I walk around the wide of the house, dead plants crunching under my boots. There’s old litter here—faded pieces of plastic two-liter bottles and ripped plastic bags caught on bushes and speckled with dirt.

  But then something catches my eye—something that doesn’t belong. A cigarette butt—and it’s plump; looks soft and recently used.

  My heart starts to hammer, and I turn around fast, checking the area. I’m still as alone as ever, but suddenly I feel exposed, with my car parked jauntily right the fuck there, and me—walking around—with nobody as backup.

  I keep walking, mechanically, as if by doing a full circle of the house I will instill some magical protective spell over myself. When I reach the back of the home, I see another door...but this one has been cleared of spiderwebs and debris, and it has a thick silver chain on it with a padlock. No rust on this—it’s new.

  Instinctively I grab my phone—no texts. And zero bars. Fuck. Hopefully one of the vampires will get my text and show up. I probably should have waited for them.

  The sun starts to sink towards the edge of the horizon, the sky lit up like a cinema from heaven, pink and azure and red shot through with orange and long thin clouds. It will be dark in a matter of minutes, and then Karl’s vampire allies can show up at any time.

  Being here alone like this may be stupid. But my life has a short expectancy anyway. And I feel a bond to these women, a need to help them. I know firsthand what it’s like to be nearly killed by an evil vampire, and it’s the most hellish thing, beyond all imagination. If they’re here, I’m going to do whatever I can to find them and save them.

  I go back to the front of the house and kick at the door with my boot. Nothing. I kick harder, and again. Again. And suddenly, like a miracle, the sideboard cracks, and the wood makes a sound like a little explosion. Dust shoots out violently, and the thing gapes open.