Twilight Vendetta

by Maggie Shayne

  “I was going to say patient,” Sarafina said as she filled mugs and handed them around. “At any rate, he’s still alive. Will got hold of some medical supplies. Antibiotics, bandages. He says the bullets went straight through him, missing the vital organs. If he doesn’t die of infection, he should survive. And since we have quite the storehouse of blood on hand, Will was able to give him transfusions.”

  “How did he know the man’s type?” Emma asked.

  “He didn’t, but I did.” She tapped her nose. “Vampires can tell by scent.”

  “Is he awake?” Devlin asked.

  “Not yet.” Sarafina sank onto a chintz settee, sipping warm blood from an elegant china cup edged in gold.

  “Why do you want to know?” Emma asked. “What are you going to do to him, Devlin?”

  He met her eyes. “Question him, of course. He might know where your father was taken.”

  “It’s true, he might,” Sarafina agreed. “But I will tell you now, Devlin, Willem will not tolerate you harming the man. He was a soldier himself, considers any man in uniform a brother.”

  “Even those bent on the extermination of his wife and her kind?” Devlin asked. There was contempt in his tone.

  “Even those, yes. And even though this man isn’t Army, Navy, or Marine, and even though he wears the black fatigues of an unofficial, secret militia, Will is going to protect him.”

  “Will is a mere mortal.” The way he said it held a hint of challenge.

  Sarafina narrowed her eyes and rose from her seat. “But I’m not.”

  Emma got up, set her own cup down firmly, and stepped in front of Devlin. She hadn’t even sipped and she was ravenous. But she wasn’t going to let this Gypsy Vampiress threaten him. “We’re all on the same side, here.”

  “That is not how it sounded to me. I warn you, Devlin, you are a guest in my home, and that wounded man in the next room is my charge, not yours.”

  “He’d be dead if it wasn’t for me,” Devlin said, stepping up beside Emma.

  She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Since I’m the one who was imprisoned and tortured, and I’m the one whose father is still captive, I’m the one who’s going to say how all this goes down. If you don’t like it, Sarafina, while I’m grateful for your help and hospitality, I’ll just take the guy and leave. And you can all try your hardest to stop me. And fail.”

  Sarafina lifted her brows. “You think so?”

  “I was as tough as any of you before I was transformed. Don’t put me to the test.”

  The vampiress pursed her lips, clearly miffed but, Emma thought, wise enough to know she and her mortal husband were outnumbered. Before things could escalate any further, she added, “I’d like to talk to him myself.”

  Sarafina said, “He would respond better to Willem, I think. But there’s no point in discussing it until he wakes. Will gave him so many meds, he’ll be out for a while yet.”

  Sighing, Devlin sat down again, and the tension in the room eased immediately. Emma sat too, drinking her breakfast and thinking she wasn’t going to give in. It was her father whose life was on the line. She was running this show, and if they didn’t like it, too bad.

  Sarafina said, “There might be others in the area. We’re not far enough from where this all happened for my peace of mind. Will walked the perimeter once today. But he needs to rest. Being a mere mortal.”

  Devlin looked from one woman to the other. “Fine, I’ll do it. But when I get back–”

  “When you get back, we’ll continue this discussion,” Sarafina said.

  Nodding, Devlin drained his cup and set it down on the tray. Then he headed out the front door without another word.

  Sarafina nodded as soon as he was gone. “Come with me,” she said. Emma grabbed her cup, gulping as the other woman turned and hurried through the house. To Emma’s surprise, she led her straight into the man’s sick room. To her even greater surprise, he lay there on the white sheets with his eyes open wide. And they widened even further when he saw Emma.

  Go ahead and talk to him, Emma, she said, speaking mentally. I’m not going to argue with you. You’re right, you have the most at stake here. But I’m not going to let Devlin hurt him, and I might have to move him to keep him safe, so make it fast. Then she backed out and closed the door.

  It was, Emma thought, a decent compromise. But she wasn’t letting them take this guy anywhere until she got the information she needed from him. She looked at him lying there, realized he was terrified and traumatized. Maybe as much or more than she had been in the back of that truck. As much as it sickened her, she softened her expression and kept her voice calm.

  “I’m Emma,” she said. “And I’m not here to hurt you.” The young man in the bed reminded her of a bird. Beakish nose, long neck, nervous, darting eyes.

  He swallowed, his huge Adam’s apple swelling briefly. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” he said. “I stood guard outside the door while they...did what they did to you. And now you’re...one of them. I’m ashamed.”

  “What they did to me was no worse than what they did to you,” she said. “And truly, it’s not so bad, being a vampire. I feel fantastic.”

  He opened his eyes and met hers. He had light brown hair, close cropped of course, and he looked young. Younger than her. “You do?”

  She nodded, moving closer to the bedside. “It’s nothing like they say, you know. I still have feelings, emotions, joy and sadness, fear and desire, all of it. But it’s all more...vivid, you know?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No, you couldn’t, could you?” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “What’s your name?”

  “Michael,” he said. He didn’t offer a last name, and she didn’t ask.

  “Tell me what happened to you out there in the woods, Michael.”

  He blinked rapidly, and she felt his emotions well up inside him. He began to tremble and shake. “Commander Hobbs ordered three of our own men to open fire. On us.” His voice cracked a little. “It happened so fast. They just mowed us down. Men were falling all around me. And then I felt bullets ripping through my body like...like fire. I fell, squeezed myself underneath a rotting tree trunk before I lost consciousness.” He stared at some point beyond her, but she thought he wasn’t seeing anything. It was as if he was searching, though. “Why would they do that?”

  His emotions hit her like a wave as he relived it. Panic. Horror. Fear. Heartbreak. Betrayal. More fear. She wasn’t used to feeling the emotions of others this way, so she tried to erect a barrier around her mind to keep them out. “They followed orders,” she told him. “Afterward, Hobbs shot the three of them in the back of the head.”

  He gulped, perhaps nearly choked. “You s-saw it?”

  “My friend did. The one who brought you here. If he didn’t, you’d be dead too. Hobbs wouldn’t have let you live.”

  “I don’t understand.” He lowered his head, shook it. “I was a good recruit.”

  “Fighting for a bad cause,” she told him. “You chose the wrong side, Michael.”

  “Hobbs went crazy, that’s all. It isn’t....”

  Emma, turn on the Television, quickly. It was Sarafina, speaking to her mentally from the next room. Emma looked around, spotted the remote, pointed it at the TV on the wall and pressed a button. The television came on, and there was Commander Hobbs, one arm in a sling, standing weakly behind a podium. A giant American flag covered the wall behind him, and a crush of reporters had gathered in front. Cameras flashed and questions were shouted.

  Hobbs held up one hand, winced and pressed it to his waist. The crowd quieted and he spoke. “Last night, while my team was on a routine training exercise, we were ambushed by a gang of vampires.” He lowered his eyes as if the memory was almost too painful to bear. “They managed to disarm a few of the men, and then they turned our own weapons on us. Forty men were cut down in their prime, murdered by these soulless demons.”

  “That’s not what
happened,” the man in the bed whispered.

  Hobbs went on. “Make no mistake, this gang of blood drinkers didn’t kill to feed. They were not defending themselves. This was an ambush, a mass execution driven by nothing but hate. If the vampire race is allowed to propagate and to live freely in this great nation of ours, mankind will soon find itself subjugated by them. They will outnumber us, wiping us out and leaving only enough to serve their needs as a food supply.”

  “That’s not true, either,” Emma said.

  “We will soon be enslaved unless we defend ourselves now. There can be no treaty. There can be no peaceful co-existence. They are predators. They have no more conscience than a great white shark or a pack of killer wolves. We are their prey. For us to survive, they must be eliminated. This isn’t a question anymore. It’s a fact.”

  As he paused for a breath, reporters shouted questions. The man in the bed reached for the remote and muted the volume. He said, “I’m sorry. I...had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “Then make it right,” she told him.

  He lifted his head, looked her in the eye. “How?”

  “You’re the only person alive who can say what really happened back there.”

  He nodded, and she thought he appreciated her honesty. “And I will. I’ll tell the world what really happened. Just as soon as....”

  “As soon as you’re well enough,” Emma said. “But until then, we have to keep you hidden. If Hobbs finds out you’re alive–”

  “Hobbs,” he interrupted, a fresh burst of fear exploding in his head. “He must already know. They would have ID’d all the bodies, notified their next of kin. They’ll know I’m unaccounted for.” Suddenly he looked terrified all over again.

  “We can protect you,” Emma told him. “And you can trust that we will, because we need you to tell your story. We need the world to know we’re not heartless murderers.”

  He nodded hard, then lowered his head again. “I can never make up for what was done to you back there. Or for being on the wrong side in this fight. Or for believing the lies....”

  “Maybe you can,” Emma said softly.

  His head came up fast, eyes eager. “How? Just tell me how?”

  She paced away from the bed. “They were holding my father prisoner there, before me. He was moved just before I arrived to rescue him.”

  “Professor Benatar is your father?”

  Her heart beat faster at the mention of his name. “Yes, and all I want is to get him out of their hands. If you know anything about where they’ve taken him–”

  “I do,” he said. “I know exactly where he is.”

  “You do?” Her eyes widening, she moved closer to the bed, glancing over her shoulder as if she thought Devlin might be standing there listening. But she would know if he was near. She felt him the way she could sometimes feel the approach of a storm. Tingling electricity, subtly making the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up and vibrate. “Where?” she asked.

  He’d looked at the door too, then back at her again. “I think I can trust you,” he said. “But I’m not sure about those other two vampires. Get me out of here, away from them. Then I’ll tell you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Devlin was tuned in to Emma in a way he’d never been to another being. He hadn’t taught her how to guard her thoughts, though he knew she’d been experimenting with ways to do that on her own, and having some degree of success. But she hadn’t mastered blocking. Yet. And while lingering in the mind of another without their consent, or even their knowledge, was considered the height of bad manners among his kind, he couldn’t seem to help himself with her.

  Basking in her essence was a balm to him.

  And so he was with her in that room, even though she thought he wasn’t, and even though he was physically outside the house. The night enchanted him as it always had. The birds who came awake in the evening were an entirely different group from their diurnal counterparts. Their songs were mournful and haunting. The air tasted different at night, cool and moist, not burned dry by the daytime sun nor altered by its rays. The nighttime air was pure, and he enjoyed taking great deep breaths of it just for its taste and the slight buzz it brought to his brain.

  He’d fed on a stoner once, tasted the bong smoke in his blood, adding a bitter herbal twang to its salt and sulfur richness. It had left him with a feeling much like the one deep draughts of nighttime air gave to him. A natural sort of high, minus the nasty taste.

  He walked into the woods about a mile from the house, and then circled the house from that distance. He kept his mind and his senses attuned for any sign of human encroachment, but found none.

  Assured of that, he pulled out his recovered cell phone. Will had charged it for him during the day. It was long past time he made contact with Tavia to let her know he was all right. He remembered Emma saying each phone had the other numbers programmed in. They’d all keyed in initials instead of names, to identify whose was whose, and so he opened the text feature and sent his message to T.

  Free and safe, he typed.

  There was barely any pause before she replied. Thank God. Been worried. Where R U?

  With friends. U?

  Home. The single word held so much power. He knew she meant the island. That she thought of it as home, made him realize that he did too. Even though he’d barely spent any time there yet, it was their place. Their haven. Their home. He hadn’t realized until that moment how eager he was to get back there.

  But then another text appeared, and he sensed Tavia’s urgency even from this distance. W and S free 2?

  Yes, but not with us. Took off.

  Thought so. Their pics R on TV. Wanted. Dangerous. Do not approach.

  He lifted his brows, realizing anew how desperate DPI was to get the Offspring back. He had to find them before DPI did. And make the crow tell the truth. And find Emma’s father. And get them all safely back to the island. It was a lot.

  Dev, there’s more. www.ERFU.org

  Frowning, Dev tapped the link, and landed on a website with “Equal Rights for the Undead” and ERFU at the top beside a short explanation that this anonymous blog was to keep the American public informed about the misinformation and mistreatment of “vampiric citizens.” The latest posts were a series titled “Walking With Vampires.” He only needed to read the first few lines to realize who had penned them.

  Emma.

  Another text came through, then, popping up on the screen. She’s writing a book, Dev. I found the outline. She betrayed us.

  He frowned hard and typed back, She’s one of us now.

  WHAT?

  Devlin explained, briefly, what had led to Emma’s transformation. And Tavia replied soon enough.

  Doesn’t mean we can trust her. Speaking of trust, Bell and Andrew broke up.

  Devlin wasn’t surprised. He’d sensed a rift forming between the two. And more.

  Where is Andrew now?

  Don’t know. Not here, though. They fought, he left.

  I don’t like it, Tavia. How angry is he?

  If he shows up to cause trouble, we’ll fight.

  U and Bell?

  A smiling, winking emoji appeared on his phone’s screen. Then, I’ve been busy recruiting. Lots happening here. Get back soon so you can see.

  I will. And I’ll stay in touch.

  Devlin went back to Emma’s secret blog, and read the series of posts that had begun the night she’d set out to find them, and continued right up until her final hours in the cell. Hell, she was probably writing more even now. And yes, it was clear by what she’d written that she was trying to help, to educate and enlighten, but she was also telling secrets. They did not need to sell humans on the notion that they were ordinary people who just happened to have special dietary needs. They did not need a PR campaign.

  What they needed was an army.

  He pocketed the phone, angry. It even occurred to him to wonder if Emma had been telling the truth about her own mother. Not that she�
�d been a vampire. He’d believed that. But that she’d vanished, that she was motivated to walk with vampires in hopes of finding her. That seemed suspect now, given the blog post, the book in progress.

  Dammit, he hated this.

  He pocketed his phone and continued walking to complete the loop, but because he’d sensed no human presence, he allowed his mind to drift away from the task, and soon, almost before he knew it, he was slipping into Emma’s head, feeling her energy, hearing her voice and her thoughts. He didn’t feel guilty about invading her privacy. Not now, not knowing what he knew.

  So he heard their captive crow when he offered Emma information about her father in exchange for his freedom. And he felt Emma’s temper flare. She was indignant that the man would dare try to bargain for information he should simply give to her. It wasn’t a small fire, burning inside her. And she wasn’t used to the heightened nature of vampiric emotions.

  “Why would I help you escape, when you were content to stand guard while I was held prisoner, tortured, killed?”

  “You were not killed,” he countered, his defensiveness and denial flashing into her awareness, and therefore, into Devlin’s as well.

  “I was most certainly killed. I’m Undead now. I’m not human anymore. You took that from me.”

  “I didn’t–”

  “You’re as guilty as Hobbs and that mad scientist he calls a doctor. You stood by and didn’t lift a finger to help me. And now you’re trying to blackmail me?”

  “I couldn’t have helped you if I’d wanted to!”

  “You had a fucking automatic rifle strapped to your chest.”

  For a moment, the power of Emma’s anger hit Devlin like a mallet between the eyes. Was she really that furious about what she had become? That unhappy to be a vampire? Had his sense of her exuberance been that far off base?

  He tried probing into her mind more deeply, but only saw her complete attention focused on the prisoner. He could see the man through her eyes, lying there in the bed, lowering his gaze, swamped in guilt and still trying to figure out how to outwit her and get free.