by Corwin, John
The burn of tears hit the backs of my eyes and I took a deep breath to ward them off. Now was not the time to get sentimental and turn into a pansy in front of everyone.
Meghan came to my cot and gave Elyssa a cup of something. "Justin, you need to sleep. This will help you."
Much as I wanted to argue and stay awake to figure out what to do next, I realized she was right. Until I regained my strength, I was useless to everyone. I nodded as Elyssa gave me a querying look. "Don't let me sleep too long," I said.
"I'll be right beside you, hot stuff." She winked. "Maybe I'll even break me off a piece while you're out of it."
"You did not just say that," I said, a smile overcoming the melancholy tug on my facial muscles.
She smiled and leaned down until I felt her warm breath on my ear. "I think I just did." Her teeth nipped my earlobe.
A shiver of pleasure went through my body and almost made me forget the room was full of other people. Not that I could lift a hand to make good on the friskiness. "You'd better watch out once I'm feeling better."
"Not only will I be watching out, I'll be looking forward to it." Her full lipped smile made me want her so badly right then; I wished I could sweep her off her feet and kick everyone out of the place. Instead, I leaned forward and sipped the brew Meghan had prepared until the sweet-tasting mixture was gone.
Elyssa curled up next to me, our faces just inches apart, and squeezed me. She backed off, her eyes wide. "You might be weak, but something is still working."
I tried to smile but sleep dragged me down and away.
Chapter 22
I woke up alone and in the dark. Panic took me full in the chest and I jerked off the cot, flailing and hitting something soft with my knee. I went down face-first and landed on a bed. An empty bed, from the feel of it. I felt for the other side and touched something. A pillow, maybe? I moved my hand over it and realized it wasn't large enough to be a pillow. It felt almost like skin except it wasn't warm as it should be. Then I found a knee and recoiled in horror. Had they dropped a dead body in the bedroom with me?
I stumbled back away and felt the edges of the bed, frantically making my way around it and to the light switch while my night vision strobed off and on like a bad florescent light. I flicked the light on. Felicia's still form lay there, her eyelids fluttering as the light hit them. She pushed herself up on one elbow and gazed at me groggily.
"You're awake?" she asked.
I looked down at myself. "Uh, looks that way. Why am I in here?"
"They figured it was too noisy out there. I came in to get some shuteye myself since Shelton won't let anyone sleep in his bedroom."
"Vampires need to sleep?"
"Duh. Remember when you broke into our home? All the cots and beds?"
As if I could forget anything about that awful night. "Guess I ruined your game of Dance Revolution, huh?"
"Dance Central, actually."
I shrugged. "Didn't mean to."
She pushed her petite body into a sitting position, the movement quick and graceful. "Supposedly, older vampires don't need much sleep and normal sunlight doesn't hurt their skin either." Her eyes softened and she looked down. "Thank you, by the way."
"For what?"
"You saved me from a freaking hellhound, that's what! I guess it must have knocked me out." She looked up. "How did you stop it from killing me?"
I thought about it and still had no idea. "I told it to stop. I guess all my yelling and screaming confused it."
She laughed. "Maybe I should've screamed instead of punching it in the nose."
I couldn't keep a smile off my face at the memory. "I should thank you for saving me. That was crazy brave smacking that monster in the schnauzer."
Felicia reached over and took my hand in hers. I realized her hand wasn't warm as it should be, but it wasn't cold either. It felt soft and normal to me, though I wasn't sure why she'd taken my hand.
"I'm sorry, Justin." A tear glistened in one eye before making a slow journey down her pale cheek and past her crimson lips. "I'm a horrible person for letting those vamplings almost kill you and your girlfriend and for helping to kidnap your father. I just thought spawn were these really evil creatures, you know? Maximus told us all these terrible stories about your kind, so I thought we were doing something good."
I patted the top of her hand. "It's okay. I mean, it's not okay to kidnap people and try to kill them, but somehow we all made it out of there alive."
She nodded. "I thought the felycan was gonna kill us. When I woke up later on the floor, I couldn't believe I was still alive." Her wide eyes looked at mine as more tears tracked down her face. "You had every right to kill us for what we did."
"Well, I didn't, thankfully, or your brother might not have been so willing to help me out." A part of me wanted to be nice and tell her I forgave everything. Another part of me stirred with anger and resentment. But I didn't totally blame her. I placed most of the blame on Maximus's shoulders. I'd settle that score one day soon.
"How did you change?" she asked.
"Change?"
"Into that demon thing."
I remembered being cornered by the vamplings. I'd just taken Elyssa's essence and thought I'd killed her so I could fight them off. And then I'd lost control and raged. Manifested into my spawn form, annihilated the vamplings, and chased the vampires until I somehow had managed to barely control the beast and turn it back around so I could save Elyssa.
"I don't know and I don't care to do it again," I said.
"I'm never messing with another spawn again. I thought Maximus could be scary, but you guys are effing terrifying."
I laughed, although I knew she was right. And I was only half spawn. "Are you done with Maximus?" I asked. "I have to agree with your brother. Your almighty leader is only going to get you into worse trouble."
She nodded. "I want to leave him, but I obviously have a problem with addiction whether it's drugs or sexy, hot vampire men. Ever since becoming a vampire, drugs don't really affect me much because of the healing factor, so I was able to go cold turkey. Drinking blood was the next big rush. You can't imagine how alive it makes you feel. And sex while feeding is even more amazing."
"Uh, TMI, Felicia. Really didn't want that image in my head."
She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. "Too bad you're taken."
I suppressed the urge to flinch from her kiss. Yeah right. Me and Felicia? Not gonna happen. She was cute, but the girl had serious issues.
"I've been wondering," I said. "Why didn't the vamplings attack you and the other vampires?"
She shrugged. "They'll attack anything, but if there's hot blood, they go straight for it. Most of us can mask our presence, too, using compulsion, but it's really hard for us younger vampires. This cute Italian guy, Raphael, was bitten when he tried to sneak a drink of your dad's blood." Her eyes looked down as if talking about the crime heaped fresh shame on her. "We had to lock him in the crypt with the vamplings because the virus infected him and turned him into one. His screams were just horrible."
"But a vampling bit Elyssa and she didn't turn."
"Really?" Felicia's eyes widened and met mine. "She would've shown symptoms by now. They're freaking nasty."
"Is there a cure?"
"Supposedly, if a master vampire feeds you his blood shortly after infection, it'll kill the virus. But we don't have a master vampire we can ask." She shuddered. "Poor Raphael. He was really good at Dance Central, too."
A spark of panic shot into my body. I had to ask Elyssa if she was feeling okay.
"I guess you must be feeling a lot better," Felicia said.
It hadn't occurred to me I'd been bumbling around the room under my own power. A grin lit my face. "Hellz yeah." I patted her hand again and let go. "Guess I better go visit the troops."
"I'm going back to sleep. I haven't had a decent day's sleep yet and I'm bushed."
I turned off the light and slid out of the door. Elyssa sat at a small
table, her side to me as she talked to Meghan. Smith and Shelton were doing something with Dad—hopefully blocking the tracker. Ryland and Stacey were nowhere to be seen.
I strode to Elyssa. Meghan looked up at me. Elyssa turned to follow her gaze. Her eyes brightened when she saw me and she got to her feet. I engulfed her in a bear hug. I kissed her cheeks, then pulled her against me for a real kiss, one hand pressing against the small of her back while my other hand smoothed her hair back from her face. When we came up for breath, I noticed Meghan's bright red face.
"Get a room," Shelton said with a snort.
I ignored him and stared into Elyssa's sparkling violet eyes. "Man, that felt good."
"It was kinda fun when you were helpless," she said, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "I could do anything I wanted to you."
"Where are the others?"
"Stacey said she needed to attend to a few things, and Ryland said he'd escort her in case more hellhounds showed up."
"Oh, I'll bet she loved that," I said with a laugh. "Those two are like oil and water."
"I think he gets off annoying her. Stacey was making fun of his haircut on the way out."
"And nothing more from Vallaena?"
Elyssa shook her head. "No. But I really don't like the way she gave you a time limit."
I rubbed the back of my neck and sighed. "Seems everyone is giving me deadlines these days." My conversation with Felicia popped to mind, so I pulled Elyssa across the room and toward the tiny kitchen. "I had a discussion about vamplings with our favorite vampire girl."
"Felicia?"
"Yeah. She told me vamplings can infect vampires with their virus and actually turn them into one of those zombie things."
"And you're wondering why I haven't tried to eat your brains?" Elyssa said with a grin.
Some of the panic sparking through my system eased when I saw her grin. "Yeah."
"Templars have immunity to most supernatural viruses. The Divinity gives us a few useful perks."
"The Divinity?"
"Yeah. Nobody knows exactly who or what it is, but it's the power source and central core that makes Templars what they are. It can make noms immortal, give them preternatural abilities, and all that, so long as they can pass the Cho'kai."
"The show what?"
"It's a trial all recruits have to pass before becoming a full Templar. If they fail, the Divinity strips them of their gifts and they have to wait a year before they can reapply as a recruit."
"A trial—like doing a hundred pushups and low-crawling through electrified mud?"
She laughed. "Nobody knows. The trial takes place in the chapel and nobody ever remembers a thing about it. That's pretty much the way any interaction with the Divinity is."
"Even your father doesn't know?"
She shook her head. "Not even the Templar Synod, our ruling council, knows, and some of them have been around since before the Roman Empire."
"That's freaky." All sorts of possibilities drifted through my head, most of them having to do with Star Trek and glowing balls of light that killed people or gave Captain Kirk an inexhaustible libido. "Is this thing sentient?"
She nodded. "Yeah, but on a level that makes us look like monkeys."
"We're barely smarter than monkeys without a super being to make us all look dumb." I thought about Nathan and bullies like him and shuddered. The human race was chock full of dummies.
"Speaking of dumb things," Elyssa said with a sideways look and a wistful smile, "Meghan told me what you did for Stacey." Her smile faltered and she looked down. "You scare me to death sometimes, Justin."
I squeezed her to me. "I scare myself. Look, she's my friend. I had to do something to help her."
"Just like when you leapt into the back seat of the truck to protect Katie?"
"She would have died."
"Do you have some kind of a superhero complex? Do you want to get killed?"
"Yes, I do have a complex, and no, I don't want to die. At least not until I've had my way with you, and then I'll die happy."
She blushed. "Don't talk that way. We're going to have a lot of fun before I let anything bad happen to you."
"I could kick Felicia out of the bedroom."
Elyssa laughed. "There is no way we're engaging in hanky panky with your dad, Shelton, and everyone else right outside the door."
"Yeah, that would be kind of icky."
"And Shelton's probably got cameras in his rooms."
"Nasty!"
After our laughter died down, I looked at Smith as he worked away on his tablet computer. The urge to pepper him and Shelton with questions was strong, but I didn't want to interrupt their work. At the same time, I wondered if keeping Dad on lockdown might not be a better idea than letting him loose again. He was just as good at getting into messes as I was.
A knot of worry rolled around in my stomach, followed by sharp stabs of anxiety. Dad was going to die unless I somehow convinced Underborn to call off the hit. That meant I had to find the guy. Which meant I had to ask Smith how to contact him. I already knew what my most precious treasure was and I'd rather die than let Underborn take Elyssa from me.
"You've got that look on your face," Elyssa said.
"What look?"
"The one meaning you've recovered from your last near-death encounter and are about to head out for the next round."
"I need to talk to Underborn."
Meghan, who had walked to the kitchen for more tea, gasped. "Are you crazy? Smith's story was bad enough, but I've heard more and worse about that scum." She took a seat on the brown leather couch against the nearby wall.
"I'm not going to sit around here waiting for that jackass to kill my dad."
"Instead, you're going to rush off and let him kill you too," Elyssa said. She shoved me away. I still didn't have all my strength back and toppled backward onto the couch. Wide-eyed, Meghan scooted away from me without spilling a drop of her tea.
"If it was someone you loved, wouldn't you do the same?" I asked, pushing myself into a less-awkward position.
"What if it was me running off to see him?" she asked. "How would you feel?"
"Angry and scared as hell of losing you. But I'd also know stopping you would be impossible, so I'd go with you and beat the crap out of anyone who tried to hurt you."
A rueful chuckle burst through her frown. "This is by far your worst idea ever." She face-palmed and shook her head. "When do we leave?"
"Soon as I figure out how to contact the guy."
"Are you going to tell your dad?"
"Oh, hell no." I watched as Dad patiently endured the attentions of the two sorcerers while they poked and prodded the tattoo on his neck. "But I need to ask Smith how he contacted Underborn." My stomach growled.
Meghan shuddered. "I think you need to feed, Justin." She pulled out her wand. "May I run a test?"
I nodded.
"It might hurt just a bit," she said, focusing her gaze on my arm and speaking a word.
A needle-like sensation pricked my arm, but it was nothing compared to what I'd felt during Stacey's procedure. A globule of blood emerged from a pore in my skin, forming a half-inch crimson sphere which drifted toward Meghan. A shimmering shield materialized around the sphere, glowing golden and warm. The sphere spun faster and faster until it was a gold and red blur in the air. When it stopped, the red in the blood was separate from a bluish substance with a glow of its own.
"Spawn blood plasma," Meghan said, her eyes full of wonder. "It radiates energy. Very few arcane healers have the chance to study spawn physiology because your kind are so secretive."
"Is it really that much different than humans'?"
"The blood plasma certainly is. I noticed it when making the transfer to Stacey. I'm almost certain this is where your body stores the psychic essence you take from others."
I noticed she didn't shudder that time, maybe because the scientific part of her mind was overriding the part nurturing her hatred for spawn.
> "What are you looking for?"
She said a word and a spark of amber light pierced the sphere. After a moment, tiny numbers and symbols appeared in the air next to it, hovering for a moment before Meghan waved a dismissive hand. The entire thing flashed bright, leaving only a tiny spray of mist where it had been.
"Your blood levels are very close to nominal," Meghan said. "But the energy level in your blood plasma is running low, no doubt due to the recovery effort. You should replenish it."
"You don't seem grossed out by it right now."
"Oh, I am, but I'm becoming better at forcing back the urge to vomit. At least spawn feeding isn't as repulsive as drinking blood."
"Gee, thanks," Elyssa said. "Wish I didn't have to but it's not like I have a choice."
"I'm sorry, Templar Borathen. I didn't mean to imply—"
Elyssa held up a hand. "It's fine, Meghan. And please don't get all formal on me. I know how my dad is, but I am most definitely not him."
"I imagine he must be very upset about your connection to Justin."
I laughed. "Upset is hardly the word I'd use." I gave Elyssa a puzzled look. "That reminds me; I thought you were in big trouble. Your parents didn't ground you for life?"
"Oh, I just had a mother-daughter chat and then went looking for you."
"That easy?"
She smiled. "Of course."
Meghan gave her a dubious look. "Is there something going on I should be aware of?"
"Justin met my parents." Elyssa's lips trembled as she tried to smile. "Things didn't go so well."
"I can imagine," Meghan said. "After the Thunder Rock disaster, your father probably hates spawn as much as I do—present company excluded, of course, Justin."
Elyssa's gaze sharpened. "You know something about Thunder Rock? As far as I know, he's never told anyone what really happened there, aside from the Synod. And he's the only one who survived."
"I don't know the details," Meghan said, "but your father and I once had a discussion about spawn when I joined the Templars."
"Was this after your own father's death?" I asked.
She nodded. "It was one of the reasons I joined. To fight evil."
