by Jess Haines
“It was difficult for me to stay enamored of her when her attentions were so fickle, you understand. When our travels brought us to Volos, it was only natural that I might find love in another. Helen didn’t know what I was, and I did not want to tell her. I kept our relationship secret, and continued to play petty games with Alec to keep suspicion from what I was doing in the small hours before dawn.”
Royce had been part of Alexander’s army? Alexander the Great? I didn’t remember ancient history well enough to know what time period that was, but I was starting to get an idea. I’d never heard of Volos, but the mention of Alexander might mean they were ancient Greeks. Or was that ancient Macedonians? Something like that. I knew Royce was an elder vampire, but had he lived that long? After seeing him prancing about dressed like a Goth in his nightclub, The Underground, it was hard for me to picture him in a toga with a wreath of laurels on his head.
Despite myself, I found this fascinating. None of the newsrags ever talked about Royce’s past this candidly. “I take it they found out about you and Helen?”
“Alec did. At first it was just another contest between us. He saw her as no more than food. But once he spent some time with her, attempting to seduce her away from me, he found himself in love with her, too. It wasn’t long before we were both competing for Helen’s affections.” He sighed, lifting a hand to rub at his eyes. Vampires do not age physically, but he seemed older to me now in some intangible way I couldn’t really describe. It was as if telling me this story was making him grow older in spirit and mind, if not in body. “When he saw that she did not care for him, he revealed his true nature. And mine. While she was still reeling from the shock, he drove his sword into me, leaving me pinned against a wall, unable to reach her. He killed her, drained her while I watched, helpless and unable to do anything to save her.” He looked up at me; the haunted cast to his eyes an odd counter to that bittersweet smile. “If he couldn’t have her, no one could.”
My eyes widened, mouth gaping in shock. Royce did that? The Alec Royce, darling of the media and New York’s high society, a cold-blooded murderer?
A kind of incoherent “uh?” was all I could manage in response to this revelation.
He reached out, and for the first time I didn’t flinch at his touch. As much as I wanted to be afraid of him, in that moment I felt nothing but pity. His fingers trailed lightly along my temple, down to my jaw, tipping my chin up as he looked into my eyes.
“So, you see, now I have a chance to make him feel that same pain. I’ve waited for centuries for him to find love again. To take it from him, so he could know what it is to feel such loss and betrayal.” His voice became soft, almost loving, and that chill started creeping back.
What was I thinking, leaning into his touch? I pulled away, his hand falling back to the bed.
“While your suffering will be much more than hers before you die, I hope that now you understand the reason for it.”
Thoughts were whirling in my head, but it was hard to come up with a logical plan or something to say that might make him change his mind. All I could think was that I was going to die.
“Please,” I stuttered, trying to beat down the panic rising in my breast. “You don’t have to do this. There is no way he loves me. We hardly know each other!”
His smile could have charmed the angels from the heavens. That sad, soft voice almost made me believe him. Almost. “I know what he offered you. He hasn’t turned a woman in close to four hundred years.”
I stared. Was he joking? It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. How could Royce love me? I’d seen his thoughts six months ago when I held the focus in my hands, right before I destroyed it, and love sure as hell wasn’t on his mind.
Max lightly rested his palm against my cheek, searching my face as he spoke. What did he expect to see? Agreement? Please. “You know there is no other way. It’s a pity that it has to be you, but Alec is the one to blame for that. More’s the pity you don’t love him in return–but I’m sure you can see why I need to take advantage of the situation.”
Maybe if I played dumb, he’d change his mind. It was the one notion I could focus on considering the only thought running through my head was that he was going to kill me. “No. I really don’t.”
He leaned forward to place a cold kiss on my brow, and it was all I could do to hold back the scream that threatened to escape me at his touch. “Don’t worry. You will.”
With that, he rose slowly from the bed, sliding his hands down his slacks to smooth out any creases. He didn’t look back as he walked out the door. Nicolas peered in at me before closing it behind Max, leaving me alone in my gilded prison once more.
I was so dead.
Chapter 12
Once Max left, I tried to think, through the fuzz in my brain, about how to get out of this nightmare. All of my stuff was still on the dresser except for my cell phone. I sat there for a while, trying to come up with a plan, to remember if I had anything that I could use to fight back. My mind didn’t seem to want to function correctly. All I could focus on was that I was trapped and was going to die here.
Well. If I was going to die, I wouldn’t do it lying down. Though I did briefly consider closing my eyes for just a few more minutes to rest and regain some strength, it wouldn’t do me any good if I was flat on my ass when one of the bad guys came back into the room. While I didn’t understand Max’s reasoning as to why he hadn’t finished me off yet, I was pretty sure he wanted to use me as a lure to trap Royce. For a fish that big, you had to have live bait. I guess I was lucky that I was worth more to Max alive than dead just then.
Pulling the covers aside, I gingerly slid my legs over the side of the bed, shivering in the sudden cold. The room hadn’t felt that cold when I first got here, but it felt like an icebox to me now. I was only wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, nothing very well insulated, but I suspected feeling so chilled had a lot to do with the loss of blood.
Taking stock of the room, I figured my best bet would be to use one of the standing candelabras for a weapon. The brass stand would be heavy and awkward, but they were the best things I had to keep the vamps at a distance.
Something made the furniture rattle, a low, resounding boom that echoed through the building.
I didn’t want to stand up too fast and pass out again but a sudden urgency drove me to move. There was a muffled sound, like gunfire, beyond my door. I could hear distant shouts and running feet, and every few seconds it sounded like there was a new explosion, scream, or gunshot, each burst of violent noise coming progressively closer. At one point, a low whumph preceded an explosion followed by a network of hairline cracks appearing across the ceiling. What the heck was this, World War III?
Though I managed to get upright, I couldn’t walk just yet, having to clutch the bed to keep from sliding right down to the floor again. There was a harsh battle cry that abruptly turned into a pained scream right outside the room I was stuck in. Closing my eyes, I took deep breaths to fight the dizziness, praying for the strength to face whatever new hell was waiting beyond that door.
Resolved not to sit and wait to be vamp chow again, I moved as fast as I could, without falling on my face, to the nearest brass candle stand. I blew out the candles and tossed them to the floor, then hefted the stand up so I could carry it closer to the door. The thing came up to my shoulder and was heavier than I expected. Keeping my balance carrying the heavy hunk of metal was not easy with my hands cuffed and feeling so out of it.
With a great deal of effort, I brought my makeshift weapon closer to the door. I looked up at my crap on top of the chest of drawers, and decided that the only thing I didn’t want to leave behind was my wallet. I grabbed it and shoved it into my pocket just as someone kicked the door open.
I grabbed up the brass stand and lifted, taking a wide stance to help my balance. A man I didn’t know stepped in just past the door, holding a gun in each hand and rapidly scanning the room. His hazel eyes locked on mine, and I was su
rprised to see relief flood into them. He tucked one of the guns into the waistline of his cargo pants and held out his freed up hand to me.
“Shiarra, right? Come on, we’re here to rescue you.”
Rescue? My wits didn’t want to wrap around that statement right away. I stared rather dumbly for a second, slowly lowering the brass stand I’d been brandishing at him, unable to find my voice or an intelligent course of action to take. When he saw my hesitation, his gaze slid to my throat. I saw little crow’s feet appear around his eyes as they crinkled in concern.
“Shit, sorry we didn’t get here in time,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder before gesturing again for me to come to him. “Come with me, we’ll get you out of here.”
Part of me was worried he was here to use me the way Max and Royce intended. Still, this was the closest thing to a shot at freedom I’d had so far and I wasn’t about to turn it away. Maybe Royce was the one who sent him. I dropped the candelabra and shuffled to him as fast as I could, fighting back tears as I took his hand. If he turned out to be another bad guy, I didn’t know what I’d do.
He didn’t say anything about the handcuffs, barely took note of them, in fact. Instead, he smiled warmly at me, taking my hand and nodding encouragement before heading toward the door. I clasped his hand tightly with both of my own, noticing absently as he was turning away that there was a tiny pin of a white cowboy hat on the collar of his auburn bomber jacket. No way would White Hats work with Royce. Did Arnold somehow get in touch with Jack already? Was Jack the one who sent him to rescue me?
I was infinitely relieved to see Nicolas slumped against the wall in the dimly lit hallway, his eyes closed and blood streaming from a wound on his scalp. There were a couple of other White Hats, most of them holding guns at the ready, some of them kicking in doors and checking the other rooms.
The guy who’d taken my hand called out to the others. “Found her!”
“Great, let’s get the hell out of here. There’s too fuckin’ many of them,” a vaguely familiar voice rumbled out from down the hall. I started when the speaker stepped through one of the busted doors; the huge dark-skinned man who had broken into my apartment with Jack a lifetime or so ago. He came to save me?
He hefted a shotgun and jerked his head to indicate the direction for the others to go. He grinned at my shock as the guy in the bomber jacket pulled me past him. “Good to see you again.”
“Guard the rear, Tiny?” the guy holding my hand asked. The larger man–wow, did he call that moving mountain Tiny?–grinned and gestured for us to keep going.
I hadn’t yet found my voice. This was something of a record for me.
A group of us rushed headlong through the place, taking a flight of stairs and running down another hall. There were signs of the White Hats’ handiwork all over the place. The acrid smell of gun smoke lingered in the halls. Even in the dim light of candles and gas lamps (didn’t this place have electricity?), I could see bullet holes and bodies scattered on the ground, all vamps, fangs bared in rictus. While many showed signs of having been shot, every one we passed was also staked. One had a metal spike shoved in so deep that it held his limp body a foot off the floor. Projectile stakes?
A vampire suddenly dashed out of one of the rooms ahead of us, grabbing the White Hat in the lead and shoving him up against the wall. I gasped and recoiled as it savagely bit into the arm the White Hat raised in defense, worrying at it like a vicious animal. The guy leading me stopped in his tracks, sighted down the handgun he was holding in his free hand, and carefully squeezed off a round.
Part of the back of the vamp’s skull suddenly turned into a fine pink mist. It screamed and staggered back, blood trickling from its mouth, its reddened eyes wide with shock and pain. The guy it was attacking quickly followed up with a stake he pulled from his stake-lined vest. The vamp clawed at the air weakly as it tumbled back to the floor and presumably died. For real this time.
Nobody was very shaken up by the incident. The guy who’d been attacked barely took the time to wrap some cloth around his arm before moving again. Everyone hurried along, my rescuer jerking me off my feet. I had to step carefully around shards of broken glass and pools of blood, since we rushed out of my prison before I could put my sneakers back on.
At the end of the hall we came into a sprawling foyer. There was a delicate crystal chandelier illuminating the badly singed Persian carpets, blackened marble floors, and somewhat charred carved oak stairway. The splintered remains of the doors were scattered across the floor, and white marble statuary that must have been lovely at some point lay shattered into a thousand pieces.
Through the gaping hole where the front door used to be, I could see a pack of thirty or forty vampires standing on the lawn, Royce in the lead.
He looked pretty surprised. The other vamps were milling around muttering to each other. I could tell they were vamps right off since most of them had their fangs out, eyes glittering with that strange reddish light they get when excited or pissed off. I was disturbed to note that they were mostly men, lending some credence to what Max had said earlier. Or maybe Royce was bi? Whoa. Not going there. Really not going there.
The whole pack of them went on the alert as the hunters stepped forward, brandishing their weapons. Twelve White Hats against three times that many vampires? Hoo boy. This wasn’t good.
“Let’s rock!” one of the White Hats shouted, lifting a sawed-off shotgun to his shoulder. The pack of vampires surged forward, Royce’s eyes narrowing as he made a gesture to direct them at the guys with the guns first.
“No! Stop!” I cried, shrinking at the looks I was getting from the White Hats and even some of the vampires. It worked, though, since all of them paused, looking at me expectantly. I added a little more in the hopes it would stop them from shooting or clawing each other up. “We’re all on the same side, sort of.”
The guy with the shotgun couldn’t have looked more surprised if I’d sprouted horns and a tail.
“Let go of her, boy,” Royce demanded, staring hard at the man in the bomber jacket. His hand immediately slid from mine. Was Royce using mind tricks on him? The other vampires started forward again, some of them growling and baring their fangs. To their credit, none of the White Hats flinched or stepped back.
Royce turned to me, his anger fading into concern. “Shiarra, come with me.”
Looking back and forth between the White Hats bristling with weapons and the dozens of vampires surrounding Royce, I realized for the first time why the White Hats did what they did. How scary it must be to them, standing there, expecting to die. Kind of like me.
“No.”
Royce was at a loss, particularly since I took the hunter’s hand again. The guy looked at me with brows arched in surprise at my touch. There was some comfort in feeling that human warmth, and I drew strength from it. We’d survive this.
Frowning, Royce started in again, sounding all too reasonable. “Shiarra, I came here to save you. I can keep Max away, something they can’t promise you.”
“They’re doing just fine so far. They saved me, Royce. I’m going with them.”
He growled softly in frustration, gesturing for the other vampires to back up. Most of them did, one or two staying at his side. I recognized the one on the left as his lieutenant, John, who didn’t look very happy. His gaze slid from me to the interior of the house, and I looked back to make sure there weren’t any baddies sneaking up. The room behind us was empty. My paranoia wasn’t appeased, however–I still had a bunch of trigger-happy fanatics on one side of me and a crowd of pissed off, hungry-looking vampires on the other.
Royce stared at me for quite a while, his black gaze as piercing as, and more unnerving than, Max’s. Somehow I managed not to waver, meeting his eyes and keeping my expression as neutral as possible. Hard to think of him as a monster, looking so human in jeans and a casual-but-tailored shirt, hair swept out of his face by the wind rustling through the trees surrounding the house. Unlike the other vamps
, he wasn’t outwardly ruffled, showing no hint of his fangs and no trace of red in his eyes. It was hard to tell what he was thinking. He was studying me with such a bland expression that we might as well have been discussing the weather over coffee. But I still couldn’t meet his eyes; it was obvious by his gaze alone that he was still intensely scrutinizing me, maybe gauging what I felt about him after talking to Max. Or maybe he was trying too hard not to show interest in the damage to my neck.
It was hard to see the man in front of me as the murderous beast Max had described, the same one who’d come within a hairsbreadth of drinking my blood less than twenty-four hours ago. He was here to save me. All these vamps at his back weren’t here to kill me. They were here to help him get me free. Well, more likely to help him tear Max and his cronies into itty-bitty pieces.
What had he intended to do once he got me out? If he had gotten to me before the White Hats, would he have tried turning me? Somehow I couldn’t picture him giving me a lift home and dropping me off with simple admonitions to watch my back.
Eventually he relaxed a trifle, waving a dismissing hand. “Fine. For the time being, go with them. I do want a chance to speak with you about this. I’ll be calling you later, as soon as I’m done here.”
Oh, whatever. He sounded like a jealous boyfriend. I frowned at him in disapproval. “Max took my cell phone.”
“I see. I’ll be in touch, then.”
How? I shook my head, not wanting to think about it any longer, tugging lightly on my savior’s hand to lead him and the rest of the White Hats past the vamps. None of the vampires or hunters looked very happy about it. Royce’s followers watched us go with naked hunger in their eyes. If Royce hadn’t kept them in check, I had no doubt they would’ve fallen on us like a pack of ravenous dogs the instant we came into view in that doorway.
Once the last hunter was clear of the shattered doors, the vampires spilled in with Royce in the lead, disappearing into the house using that unearthly speed of theirs. The hunters kept their weapons trained on the vamps, staying close to each other. Obviously they didn’t trust that one or more of those monsters might not decide to grab a snack before battling Max’s minions. Honestly, I didn’t totally trust that they wouldn’t try something like that either.
