“He was stronger than me as a human,” Jason said. “I know. I fought him once. I almost–if he took my body, then Jay wouldn’t have a chance.”
And then finally, I understood. Jason would never have turned into a vampire for himself, but he had done it for his son. I suddenly saw his behavior of the last few weeks in a different light, that of a desperate man forcing himself to make a terrible choice for the love of a child.
My eyes watered, but I couldn’t cry. Not here. Not now. Xavier would pounce on weakness like the predator he was, and as for Jason… I still didn’t understand him. He seemed so much like himself, except for the bloodlust. Who was he? What was he?
“Why did you do it?” I asked Xavier. “You could have helped him. He didn’t have to become a vampire.”
“The hunters have tracked down and killed most of my clan.” Xavier’s tone was now icy. “They broke our agreement. Betrayed us. They’ve lost sight of the goal. They think their mission is to eradicate all vampires, and that if they start with the most powerful, this will help. Instead they’ve set loose a generation of brash untutored demons who fail to understand caution or subtlety. Our numbers have doubled in the past ten years, which isn’t good for anyone.”
“Xavier blames Alexander,” Jason added. “The hunters changed their policy when they started working with him.”
Vampire politics were not something I had any power to change, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Xavier had given me a lot to think about, and while I wasn’t going to change my image of vampires as monsters who essentially needed putting down, I did see his point that greater danger came from the younger, brasher, and possibly less stable vampires.
For now my greatest danger came from the elder vampire, the one who wanted me dead. I had no weapons against him should he choose to kill me, and we both knew it, but I did have one trick left.
“I can find your father for you,” I told Jason.
He stiffened. “How?”
“I think he’s right here in Eagle Rock. I think we found a body he recently left.”
“He’s here now?” For the first time, Xavier looked less than completely self-assured, and I wondered how serious he was about hunting down and killing his own brother.
“If you let me out of here alive,” I said. “I can find him for you. You know I can.”
“But what’s he doing here?” Jason asked. He rounded on Xavier. “He can’t get to Jay yet. You told me he couldn’t!”
“I didn’t lie,” Xavier said. “He can’t possess your son yet. I have no idea what he is doing here right now.”
“Damn it!” Jason slammed his fist into a nearby wall, putting a hole in it that let the midday sunlight through.
“Calm down, Jason,” Xavier said. “You don’t want to work off that blood too soon and lose control.”
“You have no idea what I want,” Jason growled. “Let Cassie go.”
“So she can organize the town to find us and kill us?” Xavier asked.
“No, so she can find my father.” He turned to face me, his eyes a little more yellow than they had been a few minutes before. “You will keep your promise, if you make one?”
“You can’t trust a promise made under duress,” Xavier said. “She knows she’s going to die if she doesn’t agree.”
He had a point, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I looked for another way to convince Jason to make a bargain with me. “If I find your father and let you leave town, then I want more than my life in return.”
“What?” Jason asked sharply.
“I want Kaitlin’s.”
He bared his fangs. “I want to be a part of Jay’s life.”
“You lost that right when you went down this path,” I said. “Kaitlin’s off limits.”
He turned back to the wall, his fingers tracing the edges of the hole he had made there. Bits of plaster fell to the floor. “We’ll let her choose. It’s my final offer.”
I thought about it for a minute, trying to imagine what choice Kaitlin would make. Surely she wouldn’t want to become a vampire? But who knew what path she would take when offered a chance at immortality? And she had been so lonely lately.
“I did this for him,” Jason said. “For Jay. At least give me a chance to have him in my life.”
“You wouldn’t turn him, would you?” I asked, feeling uncertain.
“No,” Jason said. “Turning a child is… no.”
I found myself wishing, somewhat sadistically, that he had finished his thought. What did happen to a child who turned vampire? Or an infant? In the thousands of years of their existence, it must have happened, though it made me sick to consider.
“What about when he’s older?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “Never without his consent.”
It was the best he could give me, and we both knew it. “It’s a deal.” I extended my hand and he shook it, a little too hard. I winced with the pain of it, but he released me without seeming to notice.
“Are you sure about this?” Xavier asked. “Are you sure about her?”
“Sure enough,” Jason said. Then turning to me, he added, “I can’t control my hunger for much longer. I will kill someone here if you don’t find him soon.”
“I know that. So to speed things along, how about answering a question for me?”
“What?” Jason narrowed his eyes.
“Why would your father want my father dead?” I knew the answer; the question was entirely rhetorical, but I could see the dawning light of comprehension in Jason’s feral eyes.
“He blamed your father for stealing me and my mother from him,” Jason said.
“He blamed someone else, too,” I said. “My father wasn’t the only one who helped fight him off back then, was he?”
“Where is Victor now?” Jason asked.
“I don’t know, but wherever he is, that’s where we’ll find your father.”
“Why now?” Jason wondered aloud, echoing a concern of mine I had yet to address.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Xavier cut in. “He didn’t want to risk it while he had a stable body and no backup. He still doesn’t have an immediate backup, but I imagine he thinks he no longer has anything to lose.”
* * *
Jason “gave me a lift” home, accelerating more slowly this time so I didn’t pass out before he dumped me on the front lawn, although I did feel the strong urge to throw up. He disappeared before I had a chance to catch my breath, leaving me alone to deal with Evan, who must be sick with worry by now. I found myself hoping he wasn’t home. I could go inside, call him on his cell phone, and take a few minutes to compose myself before confronting him and trying to explain why I had gone tearing off after my cousin alone. Then I would have to convince him to tell me where his father was hiding now.
That last part turned out to be far, far easier than I could have imagined. Victor stood in the front foyer when I walked inside, and while I could never say I felt happy to see the man, I was relieved that the first part of my plan had clicked so neatly into place.
“Evan’s worried sick,” Victor said, eying me up and down. “He’s upstairs trying to do a location spell on you.”
So he was home. Darn. I guess not everything could go my way. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping.”
I didn’t believe him. I also wished I had my potion belt, but as far as I knew it still lay on the ground where Xavier had thrown it.
“Why would you help me?” I specifically did not tell him that I thought he was in danger, although that would have been my intention when I asked Evan to locate him. Now, I realized, I had to make sure of something else first. I had to make sure this really was Victor, because something didn’t feel quite right.
“We’re family,” Victor said.
“No, we’re not. You nearly got me killed the last time I saw you, and–” I hesitated, but soon inspiration struck. “And I will never forgive you for stealing my magic all those years ago.”
“I said I was sorry.”
I had so hoped I was wrong. I had hated Victor, yes, and for myself, I couldn’t be sorry he was dead. But Evan would mourn. Despite everything, he had loved his father. I knew what that was like, and I also knew what it was like to lose one.
I tried not to let any of that show on my face as I scooted around Victor, possessed by another man’s soul. If I could just get around him and up the stairs….
“I said the wrong thing, didn’t I?” Victor-who-was-not-Victor said.
“Huh?” I tried to sound baffled, but he didn’t buy it. Fear knotted in my stomach as I made a run for it, opening my mouth to release a scream I never had a chance to let out.
I more than half expected him to attack with telekinesis, but he wasn’t Victor anymore, and gifts are irrevocably tied to the soul–not the body. Instead, he lunged for me with preternatural strength, getting his arms around my neck in a way that reminded me, too late, of Scott Lee when I’d seen him snap a man’s neck.
There was a sharp pain in my neck, and then the world went black.
33
EVAN FELT THE MOMENT OF CASSIE’S death as a viselike clamp crushing his heart. He was in the middle of a spell, hoping to find Cassie before it was too late, when the sudden pain lanced through his chest and he knew–he just knew–that something terrible had happened.
Sitting across from him, lost in thoughts of his own, Nicolas jerked as if he’d been stabbed, reminding Evan of the bond Cassie shared with her siblings. Nicolas’s face lifted, his eyes met Evan’s, and they connected over the shared knowledge.
Wordlessly, they raced from the lab, located on the third floor of Evan’s home. Evan took the lead, borrowing from his gift to lend speed to his movements, and when he reached the stairs, he simply jumped.
He saw Cassie at the foot of the next staircase, her form crumpled and broken. The front door stood open, and he just caught a glimpse of his father racing away, probably after whoever had done this. For half a heartbeat, he was torn between helping his father chase down the culprit and tending to his wife, but it wasn’t really a choice.
He knelt at her side, lifted her limp hand in his, and willed raw power into her still form. It was a reckless move, one he would never do under ordinary circumstances, but there was nothing else. No temporary pain-numbing spell while he got her to his casting circle, no hope of stopping the flow of blood out of some gaping wound. He could clearly see that her neck had snapped.
“No!”
Evan’s head shot up, but he only dimly registered the hot young man racing down the stairs, leaving a trail of fire in his wake that singed the hardwood steps. He didn’t stop to hover over his sister, as Evan had done. He raced out the front door and with a roar of rage sent a fireball at a car peeling out of the driveway.
He missed, but it was now Evan’s turn to roar with rage. He wasn’t exactly happy with his father these days, but he’d be damned if he would lose the man on the same day he lost the only woman he had ever loved. Maybe the only one he would ever love.
Pain and grief gnawed at him, demanding release, but he could not yet let it out. Not with enemies all around him. For now, Nicolas presented a safer outlet for the feelings that threatened to eat him alive. The man had, after all, just tried to kill his father.
Don’t think. Just act.
In a flash of rage and pain, Evan sent Nicolas flying out of the house. He landed, hard, against a pine tree, which cracked ominously. For a minute, Evan wasn’t sure Nicolas would get up, and though once that thought might have bothered him, at least for Cassie’s sake, now he could only think of Nicolas as part of the reason she had stayed away from him for so long.
“She should have been mine months ago!” Evan shouted at the prone figure.
It didn’t move, or even twitch, but a second later a fireball came hurtling in Evan’s direction. He only barely dodged, and even then it was a few seconds before he recognized the near miss.
Nice fake. It was the sort of thing Cassie might have done.
The vice was back, squeezing the life out of Evan’s heart.
“You should have protected her!” Nicolas roared. He was on his feet now, threat evident in his posture. “It was your job.”
Evan couldn’t argue with that. The fact was tearing him up inside. He’d done everything he knew to do to keep her away from danger, but she hadn’t been content. First, she’d made that deal with Matthew and now….
“Your father killed her,” Nicolas said.
“No he didn’t,” Evan said. “He was chasing down whoever did do it, and you nearly kept him from it.”
Nicolas threw another fireball. It hit a bush that was just starting to flower, disintegrating it.
“You had no right to her,” Nicolas said. “No right at all! I told her not to trust you, and look what happened.”
“We don’t know what happened.” Although a twisted part of Evan thought maybe he did. Hadn’t Cassie told him he didn’t have the right to tell her what to do? And hadn’t he been doing just that since they’d gotten married? He should have known she wouldn’t respond well to that. He should have found a way to let her do what she needed to do while he kept her safe.
Another fireball missed Evan by an inch, but he didn’t even notice. He slumped to the ground in a heap, his face tilted up to the heavens, hot tears stinging his cheeks.
He never cried. He had never even cried as a baby. He’d had other ways to get what he wanted. Now, he had no way to get what he wanted. It was over. The love of a lifetime, gone in an instant, taking his dreams with it.
“What are you doing?” Nicolas asked. “Stand up and fight!”
Why, though? He couldn’t remember why he had started fighting in the first place, not when a well-aimed fireball might end the pain.
“Fight, damn it!” Nicolas closed the distance between them, but he didn’t attack with magic. Instead, he landed a hard kick to Evan’s side.
Evan didn’t even flinch, the pain in his ribs barely a nuisance.
“Fight!” This time, there was a hitch in Nicolas’s voice.
“She’s gone,” Evan said.
Nicolas kicked him again.
“Go ahead,” Evan said. “Hurt me. I deserve it.”
Nicolas collapsed in a heap next to Evan, and through a blur of moisture, Evan saw that Nicolas was crying as well.
34
AM I DEAD, OR AM I dreaming? The question haunts my mind as I attempt to find something to hold onto in this strange realm of mist. Dead or dreaming? Dead or dreaming?
But I don’t remember my dreams. Isn’t that part of my curse? To have a gift that doesn’t even work properly.
A low chuckle reaches my ears and I whirl, looking for the source of the noise. “Who’s there?” I ask.
“Have I been gone so long you don’t recognize me?” The voice is Abigail Hastings’s, but the body is gone.
“Well, of course my body is gone. I’m dead.”
“Does that mean…?” I didn’t want to say the words. I wasn’t ready to be dead yet.
“That you’re dead? No, but you got close enough to open a doorway.”
“Is Dad here?” I looked, but I still couldn’t see anything through the mist.
“He doesn’t have a body either, child. Weren’t you paying attention?” Abigail chuckled. “But I think right now he’s a little busy. Your husband is in tears, and your dad is acting as if he’s never seen a grown man cry.”
“Evan thinks I’m dead?” I couldn’t imagine. I didn’t want to imagine, because it would require picturing him dead.
“For now, child. For now.”
“I suppose I should have known this isn’t a dream. I still can’t remember them.”
“Why not?” Abigail asks. “You know what the block is.”
“Yeah, some kind of post-traumatic stress. Apparently, I keep reliving losing my magic.”
Abigail laughs again. “That’s not it. Didn’t I tell you there’
s no such thing as a seer-sorcerer?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, don’t you see the problem?”
I don’t, but the mist could be fogging my brain.
“Have you truly let go?” Abigail asks. “Of the magic, that is? Have you let it go? If you’re still reliving the attack, then there’s still a part of you mourning its loss. If you want to remember your dreams, you need to embrace who you are. Only then can you become who you are meant to be.”
“I’ve let it go.” Or have I? I still wander around with a potion belt strapped to my waist, challenging vampires who would love to rip my throat out.
“I can’t even brew potions?” I ask.
“Brewing potions is not the problem,” Abigail says gently. “Going to war with them strapped to your hip is the problem. Tell me child, is it even working?”
“I almost beat Evan.” Almost.
“Who are you, Cassie?” Abigail asks. “Who do you want to be?”
“I never even thought about being a seer,” I protest. “It’s not like it runs in my family.”
“Does it matter if you thought about it before? Who do you want to be?”
“I want to protect people,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to protect people. I’ve just never really figured out how.”
“Haven’t you?” Abigail asks. “Even before you knew you were a seer, I think you were doing just fine. Not everyone is a warrior, but if you need one, you married a fine specimen.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I would smile, but I don’t seem to have lips.
“Cassandra?” A new voice. This one I know very well; it belongs to my father.
“Dad?” I want to hug him, but I have no body. How I long for that touch, but all I have is a second chance. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too.” That’s it. He doesn’t say anything about what I’ve been doing since his death. He doesn’t say anything about Evan. I expect him to. I expect a “but.” But it doesn’t come.
Then the mist begins to fade, and the gateway closes.
* * *
When I woke from death I lay on the hardwood floor at the foot of the stairs, exactly where I had fallen, for quite some time. I felt fine, and I knew why without putting much effort into it. It all made sense–the urgency of the dreams, and the little girl who looked remarkably like Juliana. The unborn baby I carried had the healing gift, and her tiny little soul had reacted to my need in the instant it happened. It never would have worked any other way. A healer standing feet from me at that moment wouldn’t have been able to touch me in time, but one growing within me could have. And did.
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