“This is the first moment I’ve been able to tear myself away from organizing our defenses. I’m requesting authorization from the board. I desperately need vampires to help with the tear.” He scrubbed at his eyes. “Is anyone willing to come immediately? Humans, vampires, anyone with experience of the Immortal Plane. I can figure out a way to pay you for your services, if necessary.”
Dorian leaned forward with a composed face, but his jaw was clenched tight. “I would love to help you, Director, but it’s difficult,” he said with a touch of sympathy and paused. “The US government won’t allow any vampire presence in the Canyonlands. I’ve already asked multiple times and been denied. They told me it will have to wait until after the summit in four days.”
I concealed my surprise at Dorian’s claims as something clicked in my mind. What was he playing at? He was going to get us back to the tear, come hell or high water.
“Four days?” Runyard sucked in a sharp breath. “We don’t have four days. I have men and women risking their lives. I have civilians at risk.”
“Four days if the vampires agree,” Dorian said, unblinking. “Your government has repeatedly turned down my requests to aid you from the beginning. Now I find myself disinclined. Why should we risk our lives for your sake?”
He was being harsh, but it was for a purpose. Deep down, Dorian wanted to help, but the Bureau couldn’t come waltzing back and requesting things like this lightly. If they had allowed us to be at the tear after the Chicago HQ business, we might have been able to prevent this. Morag glanced at me with a calm but suspicious face. Dorian was playing a dangerous and clever game.
Runyard’s cheeks grew red with frustration. “You can’t be—”
“Wait. I can offer you something,” Dorian interrupted. Dorsa and Torran watched him carefully. The rest of the vampires did the same. “I have vampires who are ready and willing to help save human lives, but we’ve grown tired of waiting for the government’s precious approval. I see you’re a man who cares about his country. I will personally take responsibility if the US government doesn’t comply, but I have conditions.”
The conference call transformed into a negotiation just like that. I sank back, watching Dorian work. He had learned a lot about human politics by watching everything around him.
“Name them,” Runyard said.
“I want to form a task force to go into the Immortal Plane to find the cause of all these problems and try to stop it from the other side. It will help both our species.” He drew himself closer to the web camera, taking up more of our screen. “I want to remind everyone that if the tear grows larger and allows the Immortal Plane to merge with the Mortal Plane, this situation will become exponentially worse. It could explode. That is not a probability but a promise. We can’t wait on politics for this.”
Bryce covered his smile with his hand. Morag lifted an impressed brow, leaning back in her seat. For a moment, I thought the screens were lagging, as there were no responses, but Dorian’s sudden outpouring of words had simply stunned everyone into silence.
“I’m in favor,” Abbas said abruptly. She lifted her chin with a determined air.
Ruiz nodded. “Same here. If Fenton supports this measure, I think it could help save lives.”
“I’ll authorize your departure,” Morag said. “But I’ll be losing my PR stars.”
Fenton sighed wearily but nodded. After a moment, a small smile played on his lips. “Well, if anyone can pull off a near-impossible feat, it’s this group.” He sucked in a deep breath, fortifying himself before going on crisply. “We’ll get it done and arrange what’s necessary. The board will try to handle the politics. We’ll let you guys save the day.”
Chapter Seven
For the rest of the afternoon following our conversation with Fenton, I was restless. I ran laps around the compound to work through my thoughts—Morag had nixed any plans to travel farther outside the guarded area. Dorian’s proposal to go back to the Immortal Plane was risky, but we needed to do it. When he originally told me his plans after the Chicago HQ chaos, I was a mixture of terrified and excited. That hadn’t changed. My fidgety nerves demanded movement.
After the run, I did combat drills in the gym, finishing off by sparring with Drinn, the burly vampire from Kane’s crew who’d been on the last mission to the Immortal Plane. We grappled, and he let me practice my takedowns. He was climbing to his feet for the eighth time when Roxy appeared at the door. She watched as I feigned left then right then left again, Drinn shadowing my movements, then dodged under his punch and took his legs out from under him. He landed gracefully and gave me an approving thumbs-up. As his left hand was missing several fingers, I grabbed his other hand to pull him to his feet before turning to my teammate.
“You telegraph your moves too clearly,” she commented, taking a step into the room, her vibrant red hair catching a ray of sunlight through the window. “And you don’t stay loose enough in your stance.”
“Thanks for the tips,” I said dryly, chugging from my water bottle. “Are you here to train too?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been looking for you. Louise just got back from the hospital. They’re putting her in the medical trailer for a few days. Thought you might like to go check on her.”
I wiped the sweat from my face with my T-shirt. “Sure. I’ll clean up, then go. Have you seen her?”
“Briefly,” Roxy said as she turned to leave, her tone strangely blank. “But they took her in very quickly. Figured she needed some time to settle, and I was afraid the nurse might turn me away if I tried too soon. So I let her be.”
I frowned at her quick retreat and looked at Drinn. He shrugged his broad shoulders silently. I returned the gesture and left the gym, hurrying through a shower before gathering Louise’s favorite sweatpants, book, reading glasses, and toothbrush. I wrapped them in her blanket and headed to the medical trailer.
I knocked on the plain white door. A heart-faced nurse with freckles answered a moment later.
“Are you here to be seen?” she asked politely. I shook my head, cheeks warming, embarrassed that I apparently looked that frazzled. Should probably have an early night and get some sleep.
“No, I was hoping to visit Louise. I was told she’d returned from the hospital in Edinburgh, so I brought some of her things over to make her more comfortable.”
The nurse nodded. “She’s on some pretty intense painkillers, so don’t expect scintillating conversation. But I can let you visit as long as you don’t tire her out.” She waved me in. For our needs, we had one nurse and a few medics on call. There were also a few vampires from Kane’s group that served as healers for any vampire illnesses. The two groups were apparently swapping information as part of the ongoing research at the camp.
“She only got back a few hours ago, so she might be napping,” the nurse said and pointed to the tiny white-walled corridor. “First door on your right.” The clinic only had a few rooms, which were carefully cleaned and organized. The trailer smelled strongly of disinfectant and the strong tea favored by the Scottish staff.
I gently slid the first door open and peeked inside. I hoped the stark clinical surroundings coupled with the strong painkillers didn’t trigger Louise’s memories of torture at the hands of the Bureau’s old board.
Inside the tiny room, Louise lay propped up on a narrow bed with a plain blue blanket tucked around the lower half of her body. She was wearing a hospital gown made of starchy cotton, and her left arm was cradled in a medical sling. I tried to keep my gaze neutral, but all I felt was pain and frustration as I looked at her. She was a vibrant woman sequestered in this tiny room, shot by someone who hadn’t yet been caught. It wasn’t fair.
I sat in the small chair next to her bed. She stirred as the flimsy plastic and metal groaned noisily.
“Lyra?” she asked sleepily. Her eyes were glazed over, sharpening only slightly when she found my face.
“How are you?” I asked slowly, worried she might be too out of
it for a real conversation.
She yawned and winced when she tried to raise her hand on the injured side to cover her mouth. “My whole body feels like garbage,” she said with a shake of her head, her voice slightly dreamy. “I don’t recommend being shot.”
I had to stifle a laugh, wondering if she was okay to talk about the event. Her loopy voice made it hard to take her seriously. White bandages covered her shoulder and part of her collarbone.
“My butt is sore from sitting so much,” she complained. She sat up straighter, and I helped her fluff the pillows behind her back for better stability. “I really hate having a sore butt. Have you ever heard of a sadder thing?”
“Never in my life,” I said, deadpan. She grinned back at me, her eyes slightly unfocused.
“Major Morag agreed to bring me back when she realized I would be safer in a facility full of vampires. She said vampires would be better at protecting me than hospital security if the shooter came back,” Louise relayed.
She’d grown more coherent, but then she delivered a silly grin that encouraged me to smile right back.
“Do you remember what the doctor told you?” I asked.
Her smile faltered for a second. “Oooh, yeah. He frowned the most I’ve ever seen a person frown before. It was hard to understand his accent. He said the bullet missed my tendons but still screwed up a bunch of tissue.” Her hand hovered over the bandages. “The nurse said it’ll be a long and hard rehab for me, but it could have been worse.” The grin returned. “But as soon as I can use a computer again, I won’t be totally bored. There’s plenty of hacking I could do to help the cause via an internet connection.”
I chuckled, resting my elbows on my knees. It was good to see her in fine spirits. “I’m glad Sike was there to push you out of the way in time,” I said. If he hadn’t, I might have been speaking to her in a coffin instead of a hospital bed. “He was quick.”
Louise frowned. “Yeah,” she mumbled and began picking at her blanket. “He’s great.”
I studied her. She’d been carefree on painkillers just a second before. “Louise, is everything okay with Sike?” I hadn’t seen him since yesterday.
She began to nod but stopped. “Well, yes… and no.” She licked her lips nervously. “I’ve started to feel a strange burn in my chest when I’m with him. I hadn’t thought much about it. I barely noticed it. But then Sike pushed me out of the way when I was shot. Now, every time I’m around him, the pain… it’s almost unbearable.”
Heat pricked my skin. Silence fell over us. I processed her words over and over.
Surely Louise knew what this meant. Everyone in our group had watched the dramatic construction of my relationship with Dorian. The pain was the centerpiece of everything. I had seen Sike and Louise getting closer over the past few weeks, but for the most part I suspected a flirty friendship that could veer into more. It was hard to picture anyone wanting more than that after seeing me and Dorian together.
Her confession made my body lighten with an odd sense of relief mixed with sadness. I wanted to cry about the shared pain of the curse and mutter my thanks at the same time because I didn’t feel so alone anymore. Some part of me had expected to be the only one to ever experience this pain, to live with this complicated relationship. There were a million things I could say to her. I didn’t want to tell her what to do or to warn her against a relationship with Sike if her feelings were strong enough. It would be hypocritical, the same thing Halla had done to me. Louise already knew the dangers because of my issues with Dorian. She and Sike were both adults. They could make their own decisions.
“Do you want me to tell you what I know?” I prodded. “If you feel up to it, that is. It’s not much, but it could be something.”
Louise drew circles on her blanket using her good hand, nodding. “You might need to remind me when I’m not out of my head on painkillers, but I want to hear it now.”
I tried to organize my thoughts. It was difficult, considering I’d gained my knowledge in bits and pieces and was still learning as I went. “It seems to happen because of the vampire’s feelings, not ours. The vampires have a theory or two about why they think the pain happens, but I don’t know if any of those stories are true. Or testable. They mostly seem like folklore.”
She relaxed against her pillows, her brows wrinkling together as she considered my words. Memories of Grayson’s obvious crush on Louise came back to me. She’d never considered him more than a colleague. If she felt the same for Sike, it would be a little more difficult to brush aside.
“Do you want Sike to feel this way?” I asked.
Louise gave a frustrated sigh. “If things were different,” she said slowly, “I could see Sike being perfect for me. He’s smart, goofy, a good listener, and just so freaking cute… especially when he smiles.” Her cheeks grew pink.
I smirked to myself. Sounds like she likes him to me.
“But”—Louise grew serious again—“I don’t know how you stand this kind of pain. It’s impractical, Lyra. How could I ever function like this? If this mess ever clears up, I want to go work for the FBI. How can I do that if I risk falling into a freaking coma every time I go near Sike? I know what happened to you. I saw them carry your limp body into an emergency medical helicopter, and you were gone for three days. Sike is wonderful, and I like him a lot. He’s really interesting, and we’ve grown closer over the past few weeks.” Her head slumped back against the pillow, exhaustion overtaking her. “But I can’t live my life in pain or waiting for the next time I fall unconscious. I don’t know what to do.”
I considered my options. Should I tell her that Dorian and I were looking for a way to break the curse? That we were experimenting with delayed vampire feeding? I couldn’t give her false hope, but I wanted to support whatever she decided.
“It’s difficult but worth it for me. I still have doubts sometimes,” I admitted. “I guess that’s most people in relationships… but this situation is a lot harder than most. It requires a level of sacrifice that I’m confronting on a daily basis. It takes work.” Especially when you found yourself hunted by your former employer and thrown into an international dispute. Dorian and I had forged much of our relationship during stolen conversations in our rare private time and through mutual admiration for the other’s courage and determination in the face of overwhelming odds. None of it had been easy—most of those conversations had been incredibly hard—but it was worth it.
Louise said nothing. Her eyes looked distant, blinking slowly. The drugs were beginning to make her drift away from the conversation.
I quietly stood as Louise closed her eyes, worried for her and Sike both. I hovered beside the bed for a moment, watching as she drifted off to sleep. The painkillers were powerful. She should rest peacefully. I thanked the nurse on my way out.
Taking several deep breaths of fresh mountain air to help clear my head, I drifted aimlessly around the camp, trying to find some focus for all the frustrated energy generated by my inability to take practical action.
Statically hoping had never been my style, but right now I wished for so many things my head hurt. I wished Louise weren’t injured, so I could share with her, with anyone, my worries about my relationship with Dorian. Most of all, I wished I had answers to questions raised by the vague bits of folklore I’d picked up involving humans and vampires. Reporters and politicians and the public kept asking me if humans and vampires could comingle, and I wanted to shout back at them that I had no idea. I was still trying to figure that out for myself.
I wandered out of the gate toward the shooting range. It was inhabited by several soldiers and vampires, though they weren’t shooting right now. They were instead learning how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble a pistol. Kane was there, face creased in concentration. The resemblance brought Halla’s pinched face to my mind. I distinctly remembered every part of our conversation—no, her lecture—about the curse. I shoved my hands into my pockets and kicked a small reddish rock. I had put off
seeking Halla out because it would be unpleasant, and there had been more pressing issues than vampire folklore in the past few weeks. Dorian and I had wanted to go together, but he was too busy prepping for our upcoming journey. I would tell him later… I would also tell him about Sike and Louise at some point, of course, but only once I was confident they were comfortable with more people knowing. I’m not here to spill secrets that aren’t mine.
Now that Louise was suffering too, it was doubly important that we get to the bottom of the curse. It was strangely validating to realize that the pain I felt with Dorian wasn’t some wild fluke. Human-vampire relationships had consequences, and not just for me. Could we study the effect? Perhaps I could pose the question to the Scottish scientists Morag had brought in. Maybe some of the other vampires would know something more. Somewhere out there, someone had to know.
Turning back to camp, I searched the barracks for Halla. She generally avoided humans, so I rarely saw her out and about in the camp. I looked everywhere, eventually finding Eskra in the library reading a book about the Loch Ness monster to her son Oten and the two preteen vampire girls, Ayless and Kren. All three children were enraptured, and I felt bad as I knocked softly on the doorframe.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I apologized. “Do you know where Halla might be? I need to talk to her.”
If Eskra was surprised by that, she didn’t show it.
“She shares a room with Sabal in the east barracks, across the hall from Kane,” she said. “There’s a sigil painted in white on the door. You can’t miss it.”
Someone had mentioned to me before that Halla spent a lot of time with Sabal. Maybe it had been Kane? I vaguely remembered our first or second night at dinner when he’d loudly mentioned how happy he was to be sharing quarters with Neo. Apparently it was for the best, as Halla’s crabby caretaking method seemed oddly effective for Sabal. Sometimes we even caught the lone twin smiling for a moment or two, a rare event ever since her sister had gone missing in the Immortal Plane during the failed attempt to rescue Rhome’s family.
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