First, he had to get Felicity back.
Grabbing a syringe along with several vials, he ran back into the main lobby. “Will this work?”
“Perfectly, except…um…I’m not sure I can inject that into you,” Starla explained with a pained look on her face. “I’m not good with needles.”
“I can do it myself. How much do you need?”
“One tube will be enough.”
Nodding, he grabbed the rubber tube and tied it around his arm. Then, pulling the needle and container from the sealed compartments, he connected them together. Finding a vein, he shoved the needle into his arm.
“You’re pretty good with that. Looks like you’ve had practice.”
“My mom’s a nurse. I used to watch her do this all the time. She even let me practice a few times.” He wasn’t about to tell Basil that he’d recently tried to drain a vampire of his blood to cure him of his disease. When the container filled with his blood, he popped it off, then slid the needle from his arm. He handed the vial off to Starla, tossing the needle and tubing aside. “Now what?”
“Now, I perform my spell.”
He watched as she sat on the floor with Felicity’s shirt before her. She took the vial of blood and sprinkled it over the shirt. “Goddess of discovery, I ask of you now lead us to the possessor of this garment.”
Dusty watched in amazement as the blood that had been sprinkled all over Felicity’s shirt began to pool in the center. How it was possible was beyond him. “What does that tell us?”
“Just wait.”
Impatiently, he stared at the shirt, then blinked several times as it scattered in a circle near the upper right hand side of the shirt. One trail of blood slid down to the left to pool in a small dot.
“Thank you, Goddess.” Starla stood, a smile bright on her face. “This is where we will find her.”
“Where? All I see is a circle of blood near the top and a small dot on the bottom. How does that help us?” It had been a waste of time to let her do this and Dusty was furious with himself for allowing it.
“This,” Starla pointed to the bottom dot, “is us. This,” she tapped the round blood circle near the top, “is the area Felicity is being held.”
“Great, so we know an area. Fat lot of good that will do us. We’re no better off now than we were before. Damn it, I never should have wasted time with this. I should have just gone out to look for her myself.”
Trinity put a hand on his shoulder, calming him. “What would you have done? A house to house search? I know just how you’re feeling. I felt the same way not so long ago when Jonah went missing. I want her back too, and this is going to help us find her.”
“How?” He just couldn’t understand it.
“We know she’s being held north from here at approximately seven blocks or so. Now all we have to do is start walking,” Trinity explained with a squeeze to his shoulder.
“Your blood and hers are mixed. Fused. As long as you feed from each other, you will sense when the other is present,” Basil began to explain. “We know roughly the area she is being held, now all you have to do is let her blood lead us to her.”
It was all so weird but, given what he’d seen these past few days, he wasn’t going to brush it off. “What are we waiting for?” The doors opened and the rest of the gang rushed in.
“Took you all long enough,” Basil chastised.
“Hey, we don’t all have your transporting abilities,” Jonah stated. “So…do we know where she is?”
“North,” Dusty said as he headed for the door. He knew they followed him but said nothing as he marched north. He had no idea what he was supposed to do and the image of a bloodhound sniffing the air came to mind. Was that what he was supposed to do? Sniff the air?
The first thing he was going to do when he found her was tell her how he felt. He didn’t care if she only wanted to be with him for sex, or protection. He loved her and that was all that mattered.
He felt a tingle inside, something…warm. As if his body was a magnet being drawn to its source, he felt a tugging inside. Picking up his pace, he continued forward and something inside of his mind said turn left. So he did. The pull grew stronger. In a dead run, he let his body guide him to his love and, without thinking, he ran right towards the apartment building ahead of him.
He stopped short at the front door as a brute of a man stepped in his sight.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To get my girl.”
“I don’t think so—hey, I know you. You’re Destroyer.”
Dusty cringed at the name. “My name is Dusty Ryder, now get the hell out of my way.”
Tipping his head back, the brute bellowed a hearty laugh. “Nice guts, kid.”
Dusty was hoisted up by the front of his shirt.
“I think Chaos is going to be mighty glad to see you again.”
***
“Fuck! He’s going in. Stop him.”
Trinity stopped Basil before he could bolt for the apartment, then pulled him out of sight of the building. “We know where she is now. What good will it do us to run in there? Chaos could do something to her and we both don’t want that. Think about it, Basil. We have the advantage now. We know she’s in there and all we have to do is transport ourselves inside.”
“She’s got a point.”
Basil narrowed a look at Dante that could have killed. “We still don’t know specifically where she is and the instant we set down we’ll be detected, if Chaos has more men in the building, which I’m guessing he does.”
“True. But we have another advantage. You can change into anything you like inside of there and creep around undetected and I have this neat invisible thing I can do. We have the advantage,” she reassured him, then turned to the rest of her gang. “Give us a few minutes, then head to the door. Cause a distraction, start a fight, do something to keep Chaos’ men occupied. If all goes well, we’ll be back in a few.”
Taking Basil’s hand in hers, they disappeared into the night.
Chapter Twenty-six
Dusty had no idea if anyone saw him being carted into the apartment. All he could do was hope they had. He made it clear to the brute that he wasn’t impressed with being manhandled up the stairs to the third floor, but he knew his efforts to struggle only amused the guy.
Still, he had to try to be a man.
“I get why Chaos was so taken with you. You’ve got spunk, kid.” Laughing, the brute pushed through the apartment door, dragging Dusty with him. “Looky who I found outside.”
Chaos stepped out of a bedroom to his right and, the instant he caught sight of Dusty, he smiled. Dusty lunged at him, only to be yanked back by the brute.
“I like him.” The guy beamed, holding Dusty back with one hand.
“So did I…until he deserted me.” Chaos walked right up to Dusty and took his face in hand, giving it a hard squeeze. “But I have no use for you now. Dispose of him.”
“No!” Dusty lunged at Chaos again, using all of his power to break the hold of the brute. “Where is Felicity? What have you done with her?”
“Your little sweetheart is sleeping peacefully. I can see why you’re so taken with her. She is lovely.”
“If you touched her, I swear to God I will make you pay.”
Laughing, Chaos stepped up to Dusty again. Only, this time, he punched him right in the gut. Dusty went down, gasping and coughing in a desperate attempt to breathe.
“You’re more my type than she is and I managed to keep my hands off of you.” He knelt down, lifting Dusty’s face in his hand. “Though…I had hoped to remedy that after the initiation.”
Dusty wanted to vomit. It was bad enough the guy had sucked on his neck, but the thought of Chaos’ hands on him was enough to sicken him. “Where is she
?”
“Dusty?”
“Felicity?” She sounded so…groggy and it reminded him of when she’d been in his bed, waiting for him naked and drunk as a skunk. “What did you do to her?” He lunged at Chaos again and was taken down with one hard blow to the back. The pain shot into him like a hundred bolts of lightning and, as he went down onto the floor, he caught a faint glimpse into the bedroom. Felicity stood up from the bed, wobbled, then fell back down.
“Felicity!”
***
“Did you hear that?”
She had and, not giving a damn who saw her, Trinity decloaked and ran up the stairs. Behind her, Basil transformed from the spider he’d been to a man. She burst onto the second floor and, not seeing any guards, turned back. “Check out this floor, I’ve got the next.” Leaving Basil to do what she’d instructed, Trinity ran up the flight of stairs to the next floor. When she threw the door open and saw two men standing down the hall in front of one of the apartment doors, she knew she’d found her daughter.
“I found her,” she called to Basil with her mind, not wasting any time as she headed down the hall to the men. “Try to stop me and you’ll be sorry.”
Like the idiots they were, they came at her. Though she had no weapons on her, Trinity lifted her foot and connected it with a hardy blow to the first vamp’s jaw. He fell backwards and the other came charging at her. Using the heel of her hand, she slammed it into his face, then with her other hand, jabbed him in the gut. He went down like a sack of potatoes. She was grabbed from behind by the guy she’d kicked and, without thought, shot a beam of light from her body that scorched him and his pal on the floor.
Shocked at what she had just done, she stepped back, felt the hand on her back and spun around quickly.
“It’s me,” Basil shouted, his hand held up.
She took a breath and she saw him standing before her. Then she saw the blisters. “Jesus. I could have killed you.” She grabbed hold of him and pulled him into her arms.
“You didn’t. Let’s find our daughter.”
The door flew open and they were confronted by a big, burly vamp with a lethal glare.
***
Her head was spinning but Felicity knew it was Dusty’s voice she’d heard. Pushing up from the bed again, baffled by the robe she wore, she shook her head to try to clear it and saw a huge man in a long, brown coat standing in the doorway, facing away from her.
Where was she and what was going on?
“Dusty?”
“Felicity. I’m here.”
The man in the coat spun around, and she gasped at the ferociousness in his eyes. There was noise behind him, some sort of commotion and it seemed to frighten him.
He ran at her. Before she could think to vanish, he grabbed her by the throat and, coming up behind her, held her against his chest. “What is going on?” She wished her head would clear already.
Then she saw Dusty on the floor.
“Dusty? What is happening?” She tried to go to him but the man held her even tighter. There was more commotion and her parents rushed into the room. Everything was happening in a blur that spun her head.
“Let her go, you bastard,” her mother bellowed.
“I don’t think so. Unless you want her harmed, you’ll do as I say.” He squeezed Felicity’s neck even harder.
She felt the fury building deep inside of her and knew if she didn’t tap it down, someone was going to get hurt.
“Take them out, boys.”
The men charged at her parents, and another went for Dusty. The fury began to build like a raging fire inside of her. She heard the screams and felt the hand around her neck release as the light spilled out of her. “No, no, I have to stop it.”
“Get him out of here, Basil,” she heard her mother scream and watched her father grab Dusty and run from the room. All around her, men lay on the floor, screaming in pain. “Take my hand, Felicity. Take my hand!”
“I must stop this before I hurt someone.” But the rage inside of her continued to boil. She saw the man who had held her by the throat as he writhed on the floor, his exposed flesh bubbling. She had to stop it before…
“It’s okay, take my hand.”
Looking up at her mother, Felicity grabbed her hand. “I wish not to hurt anyone.”
“He’s the reason there is no sun. Do you trust me, Felicity? Do you trust what I am about to make you do is for the better of mankind?”
She felt the peace from her mother wrap around her like a warm blanket and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that what her mother needed from her was for the best. “I trust you, Mother.”
“Let it go now!”
Looking into her mother’s eyes, she saw as they began to glow. Gripping her hand tightly, Felicity let herself go. All the power, all the fury she felt inside of her came firing out in a huge wave of bright, hot light.
“You…will…not…winnn.”
As the light from both her and her mother erupted, the man on the floor along with the others burst into flames and in no more than a blink of an eye, crumbled into dust.
Exhausted, Felicity fell to the floor, her fury spent. Her mother collapsed alongside of her.
“Are you okay? Felicity, talk to me.” Her mother took hold of her and gave her a hardy shake.
“I am fine.” She felt as if she’d been zapped of all her energy but, aside from that, she felt fine. Perhaps, better than she had in…a very long time. “We had to do that.”
“Yes, sweetie, we had to do that.”
“I’m not a bad person.”
“You’re not a bad person.” Her mother wiped the tears that streamed down her face.
Her father and Dusty rushed into the room. “Dusty?” Getting to her feet, she ran into his arms. “I was so worried he would harm you, that he would harm all of you. You are my protector, you saved me.”
He held her out, wiped a hand across her damp face, and shook his head. “No, Felicity, you saved me. You don’t need me to protect you anymore.”
Her chest suddenly tightened. “I will always need you. You are my friend, my lover, my…love.” She loved him with all her heart.
Taking her face in his hands, he took her lips in a slow, sensual kiss that made her head spin and her heart warm. When he released her, she was smiling.
“I love you too.”
“Holy mother of God! The sun, the sun is back!”
Felicity turned to see her parents’ friends barrel into the room, then she realized just how bright it was. Turning to the open window at her back, she smiled. “Is the darkness gone?”
Her mother took her hand in hers and held it against her cheek. “The darkness is gone. We did it, my sweet. We brought back the sun.”
Dusty wrapped his arms around her and kissed the back of her neck. “You’re my hero.”
“What did I say about touching my daughter?”
“Basil.”
“Just kidding.”
Her father took her free hand and, lifting it to his lips, kissed her knuckles. Reaching out, he took her mother’s hand in his. Together they were joined as one. “That’s my girls.”
For the first time in her life, Felicity felt at home.
Epilogue
She knew the instant she stepped outside the sun would burn her skin, so Trinity stood on the terrace under the roof of dead vines and wood and admired what had been absent for nearly a year.
Had it really been that long?
Once, as a child, she’d been terrified of the dark, of the monsters that lurked in the shadows of the night. Trinity knew now that the only thing terrifying about the darkness was that it might never end. Anything in the darkness could be dealt with, and it had. They had survived it.
Because she’d been in the darkness for
so long, the bright sunlight hurt her eyes. For one moment, she didn’t care. Slipping her sunglasses off, she blinked at the brightness of the daylight. Despite the pain, she felt pleasure. There was such beauty in the daylight. Even though the trees had long withered, the grass was brown, flowers were dead, and there were no birds flying in the serene blue sky, Trinity saw beauty.
Soon enough things would be back to normal and she was going to enjoy watching it.
She sensed Basil even before he stepped out onto the terrace. When he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, she leaned into him and sighed.
“The champagne has been chilled and now everyone waits for you to begin the celebration.”
She held onto his hands and reveled in the moment. “I just needed one more look.”
“It’s been three hours. The sun isn’t going anywhere.”
She hoped not. “It’s been a crazy year.”
“It has at that.”
“When I walked in on you while you were boinking another woman, I thought my world had crumbled. I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and die.”
He turned her, cupping her face in his hand. “If I had to do it over, I would have done things so much differently.”
“We can’t go back and, even if we could, who is to say we’d do things better. We’ve found new friends, had struggles with old ones, and we created a pretty damn good child. In the grand scheme of things, I would have to say we did pretty well. We survived.”
He kissed her slowly, softly. When he pulled away, he was smiling. “Yes, we did.”
“But this is only the beginning.”
“I know.”
“This is our city now. It’s time the rest of the world realized who we are.”
“Might be a tough battle.”
She shrugged and slipped a finger along the edge of his hair, feeling the softness of it. “Have you ever known me to back away from a battle?”
Shiela Stewart - [Darkness 06] Page 17
