“This one's fine. You need one-” she stopped. No, he didn't. Neither of them did. “All right.”
She swapped out one too big black trench coat for another and transferred the contents of the pockets. When she'd, finished Jorick asked, “Are we ready?”
“Yes!” Oren nearly jumped for the door. “With the delay, we only have a little over an hour until sunrise.”
“Well I’m sorry for the inconvenience! Maybe if you’d pinned him down back at the Citadel, it wouldn’t have been a problem!” Katelina turned to Jorick, expecting to see admonishment in his eyes. Instead, she saw amusement.
Oren didn’t answer and they filed out of the house silently. Alistair’s body was gone, and the spot was roughed up; dirt on top of the snow. Oren opened the driver’s door, and then stopped to examine the van. She could almost feel him wince as he moved from one dent to another and finally stopped at the broken, bloody windshield.
“Fabian will have to deal with it,” Jorick commented.
Oren ground his teeth but said nothing.
Jorick opened the van’s back doors and helped Katelina in. There were two long wooden boxes on either side with a narrow aisle in between. A heavy curtain cut the back off from the front seats and, with no windows, the compartment was lit only by a single dome light.
Jorick pulled the doors shut. He sat on one of the boxes and motioned Katelina to join him. She’d just sat down when Oren slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. The little light went out and plunged them into darkness.
Jorick squeezed her hand. “You can sit in the front.”
She didn’t like the idea of sitting alone next to Oren, so she shook her head. Even in the dark, Jorick’s vampire eyes could see the motion.
“It won’t be long before you’ll have to drive. Perhaps you should take a nap?”
“I know.” She absently patted her coat pocket to make sure the folded stack of directions was there. “This isn’t going to be a blood bath, is it?”
“No.” He amended, “It shouldn’t be. The building will be closed and Hectia says there is no security. We will be in and home before you know it.”
“And then?”
“And then off to some horrible tropical place.” His voice was teasing.
She nodded again and snuggled up against Jorick. The smell of soap and his usual musky scent filled her nose and she felt her body relax. The horrors of the world she inhabited now couldn’t touch her so long as she was with him. Not Traven’s plan, not Oren’s war, not even The Guild and their terrible Executioners. Let them scheme and fight. She was safe from all of it, so long as she had Jorick.
Wasn’t she?
**********
BOOK 4:
ASHES OF DECEIT
**********
Chapter One
Katelina walked out of the truck stop and eyed the dented, ugly carpet van. It stared back, like a dragon that wanted to swallow her whole. A blast of winter wind rattled her and she brushed her blonde hair from her face. She’d been volunteered to drive to Michigan and the Institute of Supernatural and Unexplained Sciences to help rescue a vampire, while Jorick and his fledgling, Oren, were going to sleep in wooden boxes in the back.
She wondered if it was legal to transport vampires over a state border. There should be a law about that, she mused silently. Maybe there was. The Guild, the vampires’ government, had laws for everything else, and they used the Executioners to enforce them. As the name implied, there seemed to be only one penalty for misconduct.
Oren walked out of the truck stop, his tawny hair streaming in the wind. His amber eyes flicked over her and he bit off the careful words, “Jorick thinks you can handle it.” He shoved the keys into her hand, then he climbed into the back of the van and pulled the doors closed.
Jorick was waiting patiently by the passenger's door. Katelina's gaze flicked over him; his flawlessly smooth skin, broad shoulders, and long, black hair. As she met his eyes, her apprehension disappeared in the warm, silky depths. She knew he produced the artificial calm, just one of many in his bag of vampire tricks, but she shoved it away. Though he meant well, she didn’t like the manipulation.
He shrugged and swung into the passenger seat. Though the sun would rise soon, he sat next to her as she fumbled the vehicle onto the road.
“I’ve never driven anything this big.”
“You’ll be fine, little one. You have the directions and there’s money in the glove box for gas and anything you need. As soon as it gets dark, Oren will take over.”
She nodded along as if his words were a song with a good beat. “What do I do if I get pulled over? I don’t have any ID on me.”
He offered her a fanged smile that left her irritated. “Don’t.”
Shortly afterwards, he slipped behind a curtain to the back of the van, and sealed himself in a box. Once she was sure both vampires were settled, she pulled into the next gas station and bought a pack of cigarettes. She’d quit, but today seemed like a good time to start again. They were probably going to get killed, so lung cancer wouldn’t matter.
As the miles passed, the radio was her only companion. She took a sick comfort in the noise and fell to talking to it.
“We’re only rescuing Kale because Oren wants to recruit him for his stupid war with the Guild. We don’t really know him, and if Kale’s dumb enough to get caught by humans, then he can get himself out.”
The last statement jarred her. There was an implication behind it that humans were somehow lower. The tiny shift in attitude scared her. She was still human. Obviously she’d spent too much time with those who weren’t.
She pushed it away. “It’s just as well that I’m here. It’s only some crack pot doctor with a pseudo facility but, since I met Oren, he’s had dead bodies piling up behind him. I suppose I should feel sorry for him. His wife and kids got killed by the Executioners a couple months ago, but it’s hard when he always acts like I’m beneath him. That’s how all of Jorick’s stupid vampire friends act. Except Loren and Verchiel.
“Though Verchiel’s hardly Jorick’s friend, more like someone he’d like to see hung by his own entrails.” She pictured Verchiel for a moment. Like his motives, his appearance was an enigma. His longish hair was so ridiculously red it looked fake, while his features were Asian. “I don’t know why Jorick hates him so much. Sure, he’s an Executioner, and most of them are pure evil, but he’s not too bad. Okay, he’s a pain in the ass, and I haven’t forgotten that crap of locking me in that little room when he hauled me to the Citadel a few weeks ago, but he’s better than a lot of the others. You can almost talk to him.” She heaved a sigh. “Maybe I’m just desperate for a friend. I am talking to a radio.”
The answer was a commercial about whiter teeth for Christmas. Disgusted, she fell silent. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Jorick’s company, but she needed to talk to someone about how abnormal the vampires’ world was, and Jorick just didn’t understand.
The day passed. Though the sun hung high in the sky, the weather stayed cold as she drove from one state to another. Pennsylvania seemed the coldest. Maybe because it was nearly sundown by the time she crossed the border.
She turned off the highway and into a broad parking lot. Signs on the dilapidated buildings promised an amazing antique experience. Apparently the shops hadn’t lived up to the hype because they stood vacant, occupied only by shadows.
A shiver ran down her spine and her mind turned to macabre thoughts. Though she’d come to accept vampires and their world, childish fears still found their way through the veneer of her confidence.
She parked and leaned back in the seat. Outside, the last of the sun disappeared in a pool of purple and red. It was barely gone when one of the boxes banged open and Jorick came through the curtain, his eyes glinting with good humor. “Are we still in one piece?”
“Very funny. Of course we are.”
He kissed her, then dropped into the passenger seat and caught her hand in his cool fingers.
“I knew you’d be fine.”
She shook out a cigarette and lit it, ignoring his arched eyebrows. “It was horrible. I spent eight hours terrified I’d get pulled over and they’d search the van. What would happen if they found you?”
“We’d have handled it.”
“How? You’d have been burned to cinders in the sunlight!”
“It isn’t instant vaporization.”
“No?” she asked, only semi-interested at the moment. “How long does it take?”
As if sensing her mood he answered, “Long enough.”
She puffed the cigarette and let the subject drop. “So what are we going to do with Kale? There are only two boxes, and Oren’s in a hurry to get back to his stupid war coven. He’ll probably want me to drive again.” As she said it, she prayed she didn’t have to. She couldn't take the stress.
“I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge once we get there.”
Oren’s box opened noisily. He stuck his head between the seats and picked up the conversation. “Until the sun rises, I imagine he’ll be in the back, with you.” His eyes landed pointedly on Katelina.
“No.” Jorick’s tone was hard. “I won’t have her alone with a vampire in need of blood. You know what that can be like.”
Oren sniffed and Katelina got the impression that he didn’t. “Of course. As you said, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
“Speaking of blood, I’m hungry.” Jorick smirked at Katelina’s horrified expression. “We’d better feed while we have the chance.”
The two vampires climbed out of the van. Katelina finished her cigarette and patted the dashboard fondly. “Good luck with Oren.”
She was seated in the back when the vampires returned. Jorick dropped next to her on the wooden box and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him and yawned. She hadn’t really slept the night before, thanks to Alistair, a vampire who’d attacked them.
“Go to sleep,” Jorick said softly. “You can lay down in one of the boxes if you want.”
She jerked awake. “No thanks! You know I don’t like that.”
He chuckled. “It’s just a suggestion.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” She relaxed again. Sleeping in a box was a little too much like being a vampire. She spent time with them, but she didn’t want to join their ranks. At least not yet.
Not yet.
That was another disturbing idea. Like so many others, she let it drift away. Someday, she’d have to deal with all those ideas, but now wasn’t the time.
“Get some rest,” Jorick said softly.
With a final yawn, she did.
Jorick woke her several hours later. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and asked what time it was.
“Nearly one, which should be plenty of time.” As an afterthought Jorick added, “We’re here.”
The back door of the van opened and Oren leaned in, scowling. “Hectia isn’t here.”
Hectia. The name was only semi-familiar to Katelina, and conjured an image of a dark haired vampiress with a childish temperament. Like so many of Jorick and Oren’s relationships in the vampire world, the one with Hectia was tenuous and crisscrossed with lies and carefully balanced politics. A former enemy of Oren’s, Hectia believed she owed him now that her master was dead. She didn’t really, but Katelina wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Maybe she’s late?” Jorick climbed out into the snow. “She did agree to help?”
“After a fashion. She was supposed to bring someone who could disable the security system.”
The two vampires moved away and Katelina followed uncertainly. They stopped a few feet away and frowned at an old brick building. Antique cornices and stone work accentuated the four floors. Dark, blank windows stared like empty eyes. The building sat back from the street in the center of a little square of snowy lawn, surrounded by skeletal trees and orange tinted streetlights. The neighboring buildings were just as old: large, dark houses and a sleepy church. The air hung heavy with eerie winter silence.
It wasn’t what Katelina had imagined. “You’re sure this is it?”
Jorick pointed to a wooden sign that proclaimed, “Michigan Institute of Supernatural and Unexplained Sciences”.
“Apparently.”
“I thought it would be more high-tech. You know, white walls, lots of glass, an eye scanner.”
Oren checked his watch impatiently. “Hectia obviously isn’t going to show up. I suggest we cut the power. That should get rid of any alarm system.”
Katelina rolled her eyes. “Great idea, except alarms have a battery backup.”
“And how do you know about building security?” Oren asked coldly
“The newspaper office where I worked had an alarm system! Most businesses do, you know!” Before she could berate Oren further, an idea struck her. “But not upstairs… my boss said it was a waste of money because people can’t get through a third story window - but you two could!” She pointed to the upper stories. “I bet they don’t have any alarms up there, either.”
Jorick smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re probably right. From the looks of it, this institute doesn’t have much funding. I’m sure they cut corners where they can.”
“And what if they haven’t? This is an institute for the paranormal. Surely they’d know our abilities?” Oren met Jorick’s eyes and held them.
“I doubt the idiots running this place have any concept of us, or our abilities. If they did, they’d have a better facility.”
Oren’s only reply was, “They have Kale.”
Jorick brushed the comment aside and turned to Katelina. “Do you remember anything else about the alarm system?”
“It had a keypad just inside the door, but I didn’t know the code. Once, Mr. Fordrent didn’t show up for work, so the secretary had to let us in. After the door opened, she couldn’t remember the code and the system called the security company. The cops and a guard showed up.”
Jorick nodded. “It sounds like we either chance the window or wait for Hectia and her friend.”
Oren growled low in his throat. His eyes snapped to the building “All right, we’ll try it, but I don’t like it.”
Jorick turned to Katelina. “You should stay in the van. I don’t know what we’ll find in there, or what condition Kale is in. It might be best to keep temptation away.”
She didn’t like the implication in his words, but she liked waiting alone even less. “Anyone could show up! What then?”
Jorick shifted from one foot to the other and Oren gave a disgusted grunt. “Oh, take her. But if she gets in the way, I won’t hesitate to leave her.”
Jorick’s dark head snapped up. “No, you won’t.”
They walked to the building. The two vampires examined it and then nodded in unison, as if they’d agreed on an unspoken conclusion. “I’ll go first.” Oren glanced at Katelina. “Since I’m not… encumbered.”
He crouched low, so that his fingertips brushed the sidewalk, then sprung upwards and caught one of the windows on the second story. Jorick had once helped Katelina break into her old apartment by jumping up the building. Though she’d thought it was terrifying at the time, it was even worse when she could see it in the third person.
At the fourth floor, Oren easily swung onto one of the wide windowsills. Katelina watched with trepidation as he straightened and worked on the window. Like the feline he resembled, he seemed perfectly at home, despite the dizzying height.
The lock clicked. The sound echoed in the heavy air and Katelina tensed. She saw Jorick’s eyes shoot around the perimeter, as if seeking observers, but there were none.
Oren looked to them with an expression that said “this is it”. Then, he raised the window. They caught their breath, waiting. They didn’t hear an alarm, only the winter wind whistling through the naked trees. With a satisfied nod to his accomplices, Oren dropped inside.
Jorick offered Katelina a smile. “It’s our turn now, little one.” He swept her to
him with one arm. “Hold on.” Then he leapt. She smashed her eyes shut and swallowed back a scream as the ground fell away. She didn’t want to see this.
Though she didn’t look, she could feel him spring from floor to floor. Each hop made her stomach tighten. She clutched him tightly and imagined slipping from his grasp and plummeting to the sidewalk below.
Then they stopped. She opened her eyes just as Jorick dropped her into the window. Oren clutched a handful of her coat, which kept her from falling to the floor, but did little else. She used the wall to pull herself upright and sent him a dark look.
He hissed at Jorick, “Are you coming?”
The raven haired vampire held up a finger, his body tense and his eyes on the ground.
“What is it?” Oren asked with alarm. Instead of answering, Jorick disappeared, no doubt dropping down to investigate.
Oren swore under his breath and pulled Katelina to the floor. She jerked loose and he held a finger to his lips. Something in his eyes dared her to make a sound.
Her ears strained in the silence. All she could hear was her heart hammering and, from her position on the floor, all she could see through the window was the tree tops and a shivering moon.
Moments ticked by. Unvoiced horrors screamed through her mind. Were the police there? Was it a security guard? Had The Guild sent a squad of Executioners? Had a blood crazed Kale escaped his prison?
Suddenly a face appeared at the window. She choked the scream into a squeal and flung herself backwards into a pile of boxes. Oren jumped, but caught himself at the last moment. It was only Jorick.
The dark haired vampire swung inside, an amused smile on his lips. He offered Katelina a hand up. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. So what was it?”
“Hectia, and she brought her friend. Jordan, I believe. I told them to work on the alarm and that we’ll meet them outside once we have Kale.”
“Good,” Oren said. “Let’s go.”
Jorick squeezed Katelina’s hand. Though she refused to voice her anxiety, it was there, hiding under her fake calm. No doubt he could see it in her mind. Another of his vampire abilities.
Amaranthine Special Edition Vol II Page 32
