Undying

by V. K. Forrest

  “Sweet Mary and Joseph, you’re all right. Why didn’t you just teleport out?” Fia said.

  “Marble was too thick and the pissants knew it,” he answered. “Anyone got a fag? This nicotine withdrawal’s fierce.”

  “You’re not supposed to be smoking.” Fia cuffed her brother on the back of the head, but Macy could clearly hear the relief in Fia’s voice. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Macy’d seen enough. She took a step back. She didn’t hear anything, but maybe a leaf crackled on the ground or she dislodged a tiny stone underfoot. The three Kahills turned and looked at her.

  “Macy?” Fia demanded. “Mary, Mother of God!”

  “Ah, Macy, no,” Arlan said quietly.

  “I’m sorry.” Macy held both hands up as if under arrest. No need to run now, she was caught. “I didn’t mean—”

  An inhuman shriek ripped through the humid night air and the four turned. Three black-caped figures flew out from behind the mausoleum, screeching inhumanly. Macy blinked, wondering if this was all a dream. Was she really back at the hotel, asleep on the bed?

  The pale-faced figures flipped and somersaulted, flying through the air as they closed in on Fia, Arlan, and Regan. It was like Night of the Living Dead meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Arlan, Fia, and Regan spun around, turning their backs to each other, so quickly, so effortlessly, that Macy knew without a doubt they had done it before. Fia and her brother took a fighting stance, martial arts style, hands raised.

  Macy wasn’t entirely certain what happened next. One moment her dark, handsome Arlan was standing beside Fia, the next moment there was a white Bengal tiger in his place.

  A white tiger.

  In a New Orleans cemetery.

  No one else in the crazy scenario seemed to think the appearance of the tiger or the disappearance of Arlan was odd.

  No way, Macy thought. This was even too insane for a dream. Maybe her dinner cocktail was to blame. Had someone slipped her a hallucinogenic drug?

  Whatever was going on, Macy’s sense of self-preservation told her she shouldn’t be there.

  The white tiger crouched, lowering its head and snarling so viciously that she felt its fury, and her knees weakened.

  Somewhere in the dark recesses of Macy’s mind, she realized she had heard that growl before. Not so loud. Not so ferocious, but she had heard it. The other day in Eva’s backyard. She had heard Arlan growl.

  As Macy stumbled backward, unable to take her eyes off the bizarre scene unfolding in front of her, she told herself she was mistaken. She told herself the enormous white tiger was not her lover.

  One of the caped men launched himself toward Regan and the young man spun around to face him head-on. Macy cringed in anticipation of the impending impact. But then he was gone. Regan had vanished…only to appear six feet away, his feet planted firmly on an above ground burial vault. Dressed in a tattered sports jacket and dirty, torn jeans, he threw his head back and laughed as if a young schoolmate had just missed him in a game of tag.

  The white tiger pounced, claws and teeth bared, and collided in midair with another of the black-cloaked figures. The noise was suddenly unbearable: the shrieks of the men, the growl of the tiger, the renting of fabric, the crunch of bone, Regan’s laughter. There were voices, too, human voices, only no one was speaking a language she understood. She heard bursts of thick French Cajun and what sounded to her untrained ear like Gaelic. Fia met the third figure head to head, hand to hand, an equal match to her male adversary.

  Still backing away, Macy covered her mouth with both hands to keep from making any sound. Fia and her opponent circled each other, ducking and striking in a dangerous dance. The tiger and his challenger rolled on the ground beside the open door of the mausoleum, the man grunting with exertion, the big cat growling and snarling. Off to one side Regan’s adversary scrambled to reach him. Then a fourth cloaked figure appeared out of the darkness, joining the melee. He leaped onto Fia’s back and she spun completely around, off-balance, taking a blow to her chin from her first opponent.

  The tiger knocked Fia’s attacker off her back with one swipe of his massive paw, claws bared. Fia never hesitated, but flung herself forward, attacking the first man. They locked arm in arm and Fia bit him in the neck. Blood spewed as he howled with what seemed like a mixture of pain and glee and he fell to his knees, clutching his torn flesh.

  Macy stumbled back, almost going to the ground. Run. Run! a voice in her head ordered.

  Arlan’s voice? What was stronger in her mind than the shouted order, though, was the sudden realization that she wanted to live. All these years she had taken chances with her safety, with her very life, telling herself she didn’t care if she lived or died. But she wanted to live and she instinctively knew that this moment, this place, was conducive only to pain and death.

  Shaking as much from her revelation as her fear, Macy turned and sprinted back down the path she had come, between the towering mausoleums.

  She heard the tiger snarl and a man scream in pain. Then behind her, a sound and the feel of wind rushing toward her. She glanced back to see one of the cloaked figures hurtling through the air straight at her.

  She opened her mouth and heard the most inhuman scream.

  “You hear that?” Kaleigh asked.

  “What?”

  The teen lifted her face to the ocean breeze, hesitating. Listening. A bunch of kids had come down to the beach after curfew just to hang out, but everyone had wandered off to the water or down the beach. Somehow she and Rob Hill had ended up alone together, seated in the sand, which was okay. He was kind of quiet, but he was cool. He was definitely cool.

  Kaleigh cocked her head. “You didn’t hear that? It sounded like…I don’t know…a scream. Like someone was in trouble.”

  He glanced down the beach at their friends running in the surf. They were laughing and joking and splashing. He looked back at her, his brow furrowing. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  Light flashed in Kaleigh’s head, then an image, startling her. She closed her eyes. This was a new development in the last few months. Her gift of sight was beginning to kick in. Another joy of being the sept’s wisewoman.

  Someone was fighting. A bunch of people. Shit. Bad guys. Really bad guys. She knew them. She had encountered them before. The memory was there…but just beyond her reach. She groaned in frustration.

  “Kaleigh? Are you okay?”

  She felt Rob’s hand brush her arm. It felt…kind of nice.

  “I’m okay,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “I just—” She wasn’t sure what to say. Rob had only been reborn a few weeks ago. He didn’t know everything. Didn’t need to know. Like the other teens, he would be given the opportunity to get used to his new skin…and his fangs. That was how it worked.

  “Just a headache,” Kaleigh lied, pressing her thumb and forefinger to her temples.

  There were Kahills in trouble. She didn’t know who and she didn’t know where.

  Not here. Not in Clare Point. Not even in Delaware.

  There was nothing Kaleigh could do.

  She opened her eyes, fighting the frustration that was bringing her close to tears. Everyone told her that this psychic connection between her and the others in the sept would eventually be helpful. Right now it was just a pain in the ass.

  And a little scary.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Rob took her hand between his, gazing into her eyes.

  Kaleigh smiled shyly, looking up at him through lowered lashes. He smelled good. Earthy. Distinctly male. “I’m okay.”

  Okay as long as I’m here with you, she thought.

  Chapter 20

  The female scream reverberated to the bone, but in his feline state, it took a moment to register in his tiger brain what the sound was. Who it was.

  Arlan clamped his jaw around the Rousseau’s neck, gave him a shake to be sure he was unconscious, and then leapt o
ff him. He crossed the short distance to the human female in an instant, all sinew and muscle coiling and uncoiling. Pouncing, he fell on the vampire that held the female down with his arm around her neck in a choke hold. Sinking his front claws into the flesh of the attacker’s back, opening his jaw wide; Arlan closed it over the vampire’s shoulder.

  The Rousseau howled in pain, arching back, releasing the human female.

  She lay face down in the grass in front of a tomb guarded by weeping stone angels.

  If the vampire had bitten her, it might be too late to save her.

  Arlan wrestled with that thought as he dragged one front paw over the Rousseau’s buttocks, his claws tangling in black cape and flesh. Blood. He flared his nostrils. The scent of it was heady. And the heavier the red rivulets flowed, the more frenzied Arlan’s primitive brain became. A tiger in the wilds of the Indian jungle felt no anger, but the man inside the tiger did. How dare they? How dare the Rousseaus imprison a Kahill? How dare they have the audacity to involve a human in a centuries-old vampire feud?

  Arlan sank his teeth into the back of the Rousseau’s neck and tore at the soft flesh, blood running from the corners of his mouth and staining his white fur.

  “Arlan.”

  Still pinning the Rousseau to the ground, Arlan bit him again, enjoying the sound of the crunch of small bones.

  “Arlan, he’s unconscious. That’s enough.”

  Arlan heard the steady voice. Knew the voice. Fia. Fia, his beloved.

  “Come on, man, enough already.” A male voice this time.

  Arlan felt the hand on his rear haunch and snapped his head around. He bared his teeth, dripping with blood, and growled.

  The man jerked his hand back to keep from being bitten. “Arlan, it’s Regan. Enough.”

  Regan. Right.

  Arlan felt his heart pounding in his chest. He could taste the Rousseau blood in his mouth, feel it wet on his fur. The blood tasted sour. Foul. Like the vampire’s twisted soul.

  Arlan looked up, watching through his amber eyes as Fia knelt and rolled the unconscious female onto her back.

  Macy. Macy was hurt. Dying. Perhaps worse.

  Arlan backed up, swishing his tail. Enough, already. He closed his cat eyes and morphed back into his human form. He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, a little unsteady on his feet. Some morphs were harder than others.

  “Hey, man, you okay?” Regan laid his hand on Arlan’s shoulder again.

  Heart still leaping in his chest, Arlan didn’t try to bite Regan, but he did shove his hand away. “Macy.” He dropped to the ground beside Fia, peering down on Macy’s face. Her skin was pale. Her eyes were closed.

  “He bite her?”

  Fia pushed Macy’s long blond hair off to one side and then the other, searching for telltale puncture marks. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “Why’s she unconscious then?”

  “He knocked her down when he flew into her.” Fia gently touched Macy’s hairline, surprising Arlan with her tenderness. Her fingertips came away stained red with blood. “I think maybe she hit her head when he knocked her down.” She touched her fingertips with the tip of her tongue.

  “You see the way she fought him?” Regan remarked, standing over them, his hands pushed down casually in his pockets. “She’s one tough human bitch. Hot.”

  “Back off, Regan,” Arlan warned. He looked down at Macy again. “So, just a bump on the head, you think?”

  Macy moaned and moved.

  “I think so.” Fia let go of Macy’s wrist. “Pulse is good. Respiration seems okay.” She looked up at Arlan, hesitating before she spoke. “She saw it all, you know.”

  He sat back on his heels and clasped his head between his hands. When he morphed back to his human form, it took a few minutes to reacclimate. Sometimes his thought processes were sluggish at first. “I know.” He groaned. “I didn’t realize she was following us.” He frowned, thinking back to a few minutes before, which now seemed like hours. “How did I not know that?”

  “Doesn’t matter now. What matters is what you’re going to do about it.” Fia continued to stare at him with her dark, penetrating gaze.

  He couldn’t bear Fia’s scrutiny and gazed down at Macy again. She was definitely coming to.

  “You know what you have to do,” Fia urged quietly.

  Arlan shook his head. He didn’t want to do it. He and Macy didn’t have that kind of relationship. He…he didn’t do that anymore. He was beyond the vile, forbidden practice of feeding off humans.

  “If you partake, the memory of the last few minutes will be erased from her mind. She might remember following us to the cemetery, but she’ll recall nothing of the Rousseaus. Nothing of what she saw.”

  Arlan hung his head, his hair falling over his face.

  “If you don’t do it, I will,” Fia said.

  “Hell, I’ll do it.” Regan approached them eagerly. “Let me do it. I bet she’s sweet as hell.”

  Macy moaned and rolled her head. She moved her fingers.

  “Arlan,” Fia pushed.

  Arlan leaned over Macy, and Fia moved back to give him a little privacy. He hated to do this. He didn’t want to do it, but he knew Fia was right. He didn’t have a choice. This would not only keep her safe, but the sept as well, and above all else, Arlan’s duty was to protect the sept.

  “You have to hurry,” Fia whispered.

  Arlan drew back his lips and bared his canines. God forgive me, he thought. He sank his teeth into the soft flesh of Macy’s neck and the first flow of blood hit him like a wave. A wave of sweet ecstasy. Sweet Mary, Mother of God, he had forgotten how good they tasted, humans.

  He closed his eyes, trying to dwell in the moment. Not since Lizzy had he tasted human female blood. Lizzy had been good, but Macy…Macy tasted even better. More illicit, somehow.

  The memories he tried so hard to suppress tumbled back as he savored the taste and smell of the woman in his arms.

  Lizzy had willingly given her blood to Arlan. One of those rare humans who understood that the world was more complex, more multidimensional than it appeared, she had embraced who he was. What he was. She had begged him to drink her blood, even begged him to make her a vampire so she could live forever, be with Arlan forever. Then her brother had been caught murdering sick and injured Confederate soldiers. He had been moving from hospital camp to hospital camp, killing his own comrades. An angel of mercy he had called himself. But he had suffocated soldiers who were recovering, and he had enjoyed his “work” entirely too much.

  Arlan’s mistake had been his misconception of his relationship with Lizzy. Naively, despite Fia’s warnings, he had thought he and Lizzy were soul mates. He had told Lizzy what the Kahills did. He had told her of her brother’s crimes and that he had been condemned by the Kahill High Council to die. Lizzy had gone mad. In an attempt to save her brother, she killed two innocent men. Her brother was eventually executed as planned. Arlan never saw Lizzy again, but had heard she committed suicide, the ultimate, cowardly sin in the eyes of a vampire.

  Having taken enough blood, Arlan drew in his fangs and lowered his cheek to Macy’s breast for a moment. She had quieted until it seemed as if she were just peacefully sleeping. He felt her chest rise and fall and breathed in her soft, womanly scent. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, still tasting her exquisite blood in his mouth. “I’m so sorry, Macy. I’ll make it up to you, I swear I will.”

  Then he stood, lifting her in his arms. He cradled her to his body, feeling an intense need to protect her, and not just from the Rousseaus but from the whole world. From that monster out there somewhere stalking her.

  “Need some help?” Regan reached out, eyeing Macy’s neck where two puncture marks oozed blood.

  “Keep your hands off her,” Arlan threatened. “You’ve caused enough trouble tonight as it is.” He walked away, holding Macy tightly in his arms. He needed to get her to the hotel and put her to bed. Within the hour she would wake, hopefully wi
th her memory of the cemetery and the events that unfolded there erased.

  “Me? I didn’t cause the trouble,” Regan defended, following Arlan. “Those assholes were the ones causing trouble.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the four Rousseaus still lying unconscious among the crypts.

  “That right? And exactly how did you end up locked in a mausoleum in New Orleans when you were supposed to be on a plane headed home with your brother?”

  “Long story, buddy.” Regan patted Arlan’s shoulder. “Long story.”

  Arlan jerked out of Regan’s reach and shot him a warning glance. Still feeling a burning anger in the pit of his stomach, Arlan could easily have turned it on Regan.

  “Boys,” Fia warned. “Knock it off. Our Cajun friends won’t nap long. We need to get the hell out of here.” She hurried to catch up, easing herself between them.

  Arlan noticed she limped, but said nothing. They’d all be sore, banged up, and bruised tomorrow.

  “Your boyfriend’s the one who started it giving me the stink eye.” Regan stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Lucifer’s balls, I could sure use a cigarette.”

  Arlan kept walking. “I’ll take her back to the hotel. You see if you can get us a flight home in the next few hours. We shouldn’t stay in New Orleans any longer than we have to. I imagine the Rousseaus will be looking for us.”

  “Gonna be pissed when they realize I got away, aren’t they?” Regan cackled.

  “Keep him the hell away from me,” Arlan told Fia quietly. “We haven’t even heard his explanation.”

  They halted at the cemetery gate. Fia looked out, listened, and then waved for the other two when she saw it was safe to proceed.

  “I’m not interested in any more of his excuses,” Arlan said, his tone flat. “I’m warning you, you deal with him, Fia, or I’m going to.”

  She exhaled. “Arlan, I don’t want you to feel guilty about this.” She walked toward him.

  “I don’t feel guilty,” he grunted. Of course he did. Painfully guilty. He should never have gone back to Macy’s hotel room with her that night. He should never have let her in his house that first time.