I raised my eyebrows. “I can give you the money you need. How long will this take?”
Parker shrugged. “It depends how careful he is. If he’s funneling money through other people, there will be more steps. But it is worth trying, right?”
“Give the virgin his money,” Seraphina said.
Parker cleared his throat. “When did we agree I was a virgin?”
Mooney laughed. “Everybody with functioning eyeballs agrees you’re a virgin the moment they see you, dork.”
We spent the next few hours making plans to find Bennigan’s resting place and hopefully put an end to him.
Cara’s roommates kept working with Alaric and Seraphina. Vlad had some mysterious place he needed to be, and I took Cara into one of the side rooms once our input wasn’t needed.
She slumped against the wall, resting her arms on her knees. “This is crazy. It feels like we’re planning some kind of military operation out there.”
“More or less,” I said. I took a spot beside her with my back against the wall.
Cara rested her head on my shoulder. “What happens to the bond now that I’m a vampire, anyway?”
“It’ll come and go. When we slept together, we sealed it. There will always be a faint connection. Extreme emotions or sensations may make it feel more intense at times.”
She was quiet for a while. “I’d kill to look at my blood under the microscope right about now. Yours, too. But I’m guessing they would be watching Anya’s. It’s where they’ve come for me twice now.”
I nodded. “It’s unfortunately out of the question, for the moment. I may not be able to promise your old life back to you, but I swear if we make it through this, I’ll try to find a way to give you as much of it back as I can.”
“It’s okay,” she said. She planted a soft kiss on my neck. “This new life has at least one major perk.”
“I’m going to get us through this.” I clenched my jaw, staring ahead at the peeling wallpaper. I wasn’t sure what it would take, but I was going to find a way to do what needed to be done. Dispatching Bennigan. Protecting The Pact. Finding Dominic and convincing him he had too much opposition to keep pressing for an uprising. I didn’t know how, but I knew I had to do it.
“You know how your specialty is healing and Alaric’s is speed? What if mine is resisting suggestion?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Vlad wasn’t able to change my thoughts when he tried and Bennigan only managed once. Just try it on me.”
“Cara, I’ve never heard of someone who has a specialty in resisting suggestion. It’s typically just—”
“Try it,” she said. She got up and sat across from me. “Make me do something I don’t want to do.”
I stared at her. “Take off your shirt,” I said, smirking.
Cara didn’t flinch. She just flicked her eyebrow upward and titled her head. “We can do that in a few minutes. But I’m serious. Try your thing on me.”
I frowned. I had tried my “thing.” I tried to focus more, delving my concentration into her thoughts. “Stand up on one leg,” I commanded.
Cara didn’t move again.
She clapped her hands, smiling before rushing to hug me.
“See?” she said. “And I have an idea you’re not going to like.”
“Cara...” I said, not liking where she was going with this in the slightest.
44
Cara
Lucian only agreed to my plan with about fifty precautions put in place. That meant I was being constantly followed on rooftops by Lucian, Alaric, and Seraphina.
The riskiest part of my plan was relying on the information Parker had dug up and hoping Mooney, Zack, and Niles weren’t going to put themselves in too much danger.
I walked toward Anya’s just after sunset, knowing that the guys were currently on their way to the place Parker found Bennigan spent a sizable amount of money nearly every night. Lucian was fairly confident Bennigan and his harem were no threat to ordinary humans for the time being. That made my roommates the perfect bait to buy me time. They’d hopefully distract Bennigan into feeding on them, which would let Vlad get eyes on him and hopefully give me enough of a warning if he was coming for me.
And if Bennigan did come before I finished, we’d move to my Plan “B,” which was what had Lucian practically shaking with anger when I’d proposed it. But he eventually agreed to trust me and admitted it was the best idea we had.
Anya opened the door, looking surprised. She had a cat on her shoulder and her eyes were bleary. “Thought you quit.” It wasn’t a question, and it was all she offered before turning to head back to the basement.
I felt a brief rush of relief. I’d been afraid she might ask too many questions or try to pin me down for some task she’d been saving. Instead, I closed the door behind us and was able to get straight to the samples I’d been working on. As soon as Anya wasn’t looking, I pricked myself and took a look at my own blood under the microscope.
Sure enough, the spikey little Lucios were in my blood. The strange part was that my red blood cells were all engorged to three or four times normal size. There were normal sized blood cells floating around in the mixture, which were getting absorbed into the massive cells when they drifted too close.
I watched the tiny ecosystem with blind fascination for a minute before remembering I didn’t have time for curiosity.
I rushed over to my samples, pulling out the handful of diseases, chemicals, and materials I’d noticed had the most dramatic negative impact on the spikey Lucios.
I used the sample of blood I’d drawn from myself to set up several slides, injecting foreign agents into each and making as quick an observation as I dared. Most had almost no effect, except to excite the Lucios into a sort of cleansing frenzy—making them dart around the sample to eradicate the newly introduced material.
I put my head in my palms, trying to think quickly. I was painfully aware of how many people I cared about were currently putting themselves in danger to give me time to do this, and how little time I had.
Think, Cara.
I visualized the large, vampiric red blood cells absorbing the smaller cells. The larger cells seemed to produce enormous amounts of energy, which meant they needed a constant influx of fresh material to fuel the process.
On a hunch, I grabbed a few vials of dehydrating agents and started creating mixtures with binding agents that would make them cling to the red blood cells in my samples.
After I was nearly out of ideas, I put my eyes to the microscope and watched the latest sample. The red blood cells were carrying bits of the dehydrating chemicals, and the large vampiric cells sucked them up hungrily. I was about to look away when I saw small cracks start forming in the cells. Within seconds, they were breaking apart and flaking away.
My heart started to pound with excitement. I rushed over to mix up as much as I could manage and then discreetly flooded a syringe with the mixture, then capped it and shoved it in my jacket.
My phone buzzed with a text. It was from Lucian telling me that my time was up.
I started up the stairs, ignoring Anya’s question about where I was going so soon. I sent Lucian another text because he hadn’t responded to my last question. When I got outside, I was immediately confronted by Bennigan, Jezabel, and Leah.
I looked up toward the rooftop where Lucian was supposed to be with Alaric and Seraphina.
Bennigan moved closer, his smile triumphant and cocky. He was wearing the same large fur coat that he’d worn the first time I saw him. It made his shoulders look inhumanly broad. With the bald head and scars on his face, he looked like some kind of Russian mafia boss. “You’re a difficult one to catch, aren’t you? I can see why Lucian prizes you so highly.”
“Where are they?”
“You mean the three Undergroves you thought could keep you safe from all of us? You all really have no idea what you’re up against, do you?”
“Is Lucian okay? What d
id you do with my roommates?”
“Your distraction, you mean?” He grinned wickedly. “The plan was cute, but we’ve been watching you too closely. I grew tired of you slipping through my hands. This time, you won’t want to leave.”
He stepped closer, eyes blazing as he stared at me. “You are mine now. I am the only thing you care about. The only thing you will ever love. You would lay down your life for me.”
I felt the faintest swirl of dizziness as he spoke. There was a vague sense of losing consciousness, but I found if I just focused, I could keep it at bay. He was trying to charm me, and it seemed I’d been right, because I still loved Lucian. I felt nothing for the hulking vampire with the shaved head who was looming over me.
I tried to think of what someone would do if his little trick had worked. I let my eyes grow a little heavy, then nodded my head, almost sleepily. “Yes. Everything you just said.”
Shit. That probably wasn’t the most convincing line.
I discreetly looked at Bennigan and the two women. They were watching me with a twinge of suspicion but seemed to trust in his abilities too much to let their doubt take hold.
“Come,” Bennigan said. “We’ll get you somewhere Lucian won’t find you before I call my allies off.”
“Yes,” I said in my best zombie impression. “Whatever you say.”
He gave me one last odd look, then seemed to decide it was better to just get moving. I followed the three vampires for a long while, letting them lead me through an abandoned subway station. We went down darkened stairs, through a long tunnel, and then stepped through a crumbled section of the wall to a room that had been hollowed out of the dirt.
I tried my best to stay calm. My heart was thudding so hard I worried one of my captors might hear it, but I was otherwise doing a convincing job of keeping my face neutral. I had one hand in the pocket of my jacket, clutching the syringe I’d whipped up. I had no idea how or when I planned to use it, but I had hoped Lucian would be within “save my ass” distance before I revealed Bennigan’s little charming technique hadn’t worked on me.
Jezabel sat down against the far wall, watching me closely. Leah pulled out a phone and smiled at something as she swiped her thumb, apparently unconcerned with my addition to their strange life as Bennigan’s pets.
I felt a pang of sympathy for the women. If he’d just used his power to force them into servitude, then they weren’t really to blame for anything they’d done.
“How many others are there?” I asked, hoping I still sounded like a zombie.
“Jealous, already?” Bennigan chuckled. “I have thirty others like you who are bound to me. Jezabel and Leah are my favorites, but I still make time for all of my pets.”
Bennigan made my skin crawl when he patted my head and motioned for me to sit.
I clenched my jaw, then took a spot in the corner. Come on, Lucian.
“What will you do with Lucian Undergrove?” I asked.
The question drew a lingering look from Bennigan, but he answered after a few seconds. “I had my people detaining him and his friends. Now that I have you, I’ll let him go. I want him to live a long, long life. Long enough to imagine all the fun we’re having together.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I said dully.
That was good. It meant Lucian was going to know exactly where to find me, and it meant Bennigan probably still hadn’t figured we were still bonded.
I’d wait until I knew he was here, then I’d do my best to weaken Bennigan with the syringe—hopefully—and Lucian could do the rest.
45
Lucian
The blood in my body pounded until I could feel it pulsing in my forehead.
Dominic himself was standing in front of us with a smug look on his face. Behind us, there were close to twenty of Bennigan’s women and several other vampires I didn’t recognize. I thought maybe Alaric would’ve been fast enough to run and slip through, but I couldn’t be sure. Dominic was immensely powerful, and I didn’t know what he was capable of.
It meant we had no choice but to stand and let the crowd of hostile vampires keep us trapped on the rooftop outside Anya’s, even as I could feel hints of what was happening to Cara through the bond. Bennigan had taken her somewhere, but she’d finally stopped moving farther away.
I cursed at myself for letting her convince me this plan was our best choice. I should have never agreed to anything that put so much distance between the two of us. I’d let her put herself in danger, but the alternative had been to show Cara I didn’t trust her judgment. To show that I was too bull-headed to let her use her intelligence to get us through this.
So I’d stupidly agreed, thinking I was doing the right thing.
Now I saw the “right thing” would’ve been to get her out of danger and trust that I could smooth over her anger with enough years of making amends.
I also knew I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything had happened to her roommates, who were supposed to have let us know if Bennigan was coming. Their silence meant he’d made it through them, and they somehow hadn’t been able to reach out.
The whole plan had fallen apart in an instant, and now all I could do was stand like an idiot on the roof while Dominic watched me.
“What really happened to you?” I asked.
Dominic had ignored my previous questions, but he finally pursed his lips and gave a little shrug. He looked exactly like he had the last time I’d seen him. Severe, slightly aged, and the owner of the two most dead, empty eyes I’d ever seen. He wore a black ankle-length coat with a high collar and a blood-red tie beneath his vest. “You only supported The Pact because I told you to,” he said.
“We have the night and they have the day. There’s no need to fight for more,” I said.
“You’re more of a fool than I thought if you can’t see it. How long before they find a way to end us? Some machine smaller than a blood cell? Nanomachines that can unmake us—can seek us out and neutralize our kind? What do you think they would do if they knew about us and had the means to destroy us?”
I swallowed. “I think they would try to find out more about us before they made imaginary machines commit genocide.”
“Then you’re naïve. Humanity’s greatest fear is being lesser than. We are better than they are. They will never abide our existence.”
“Why are you helping a thug like Bennigan?”
“Bennigan is a tool. A wise man uses the tools he’s provided. The dull blades can be used to chip away at the objective until the sharper tools are needed. That’s all.”
“Ana Black won’t let you do what you’re wanting.”
The mention of her name caused the faintest reaction in Dominic’s face—a twitch of his eyebrow and a narrowing of his hooded eyes. “Ana Black doesn’t concern herself with mortal or immortal affairs any longer.”
“Maybe you should ask her, then.”
A female vampire emerged onto the rooftop, then whispered something in Dominic’s ear. He gave me one last, lingering look, and snapped his fingers. In an instant, the vampires surrounding us were gone.
I let out a long breath, finally feeling like my lungs weren’t compressed by some unseen fist.
Alaric whistled long and low. “That guy is a dick.”
Seraphina rolled her neck. “Did you see how he reacted when Lucian mentioned Ana Black?”
Alaric nodded. “He was scared. I’m guessing Vlad was telling the truth. This woman must be even more powerful than him.”
I grunted my agreement. “We can talk about that later. Follow me. I can sense where he took Cara.”
“What about Vlad and the humans?” Seraphina asked.
“Cara first,” I said.
I felt a twinge of guilt at that, but I wasn’t going to change my mind. I could deal with guilt and responsibility later. Right now, I needed to get to Cara.
46
Cara
I tried not to sit up straighter when I sensed Lucian coming toward me. It seemed like Bennigan r
eally had called off his people, and that meant Lucian was okay. He was also closing the distance between us fast enough that I could feel it in my chest.
I started breathing heavier in anticipation. I’d need to act fast when the opportunity came.
Bennigan was speaking in quiet tones with Jezabel about something I couldn’t quite pick up when I sensed Lucian was close.
He appeared in the doorway without a word, flanked by Seraphina and Alaric.
A rush of emotion overcame me to see him there. He met my eyes, and I silently tried to communicate that Bennigan’s power hadn’t worked on me—that I was ready to help.
Bennigan, Jezabel, and Leah were all standing in an instant. I saw Bennigan reaching behind his back for a pistol. Before I could think logically and remember it didn’t pose the same threat to Lucian that it would to a human, I lunged toward him.
I stuck the syringe in his neck and pushed most of the fluid into him before he swung his arm behind himself and sent me colliding with the wall like I’d just been hit by a bus.
I gasped, watching the close-quarters brawl that ensued through double and triple vision.
I tried to blink through the pain, but it felt like several somethings inside me were broken.
Lucian was grappling with Bennigan, trying to wrestle control of the gun from him while Seraphina and Alaric sparred with the two women.
I lost consciousness for a few moments, and when I was aware again, Bennigan was on his knees, clutching at his face. I saw blood but couldn’t make out what was happening before Lucian scooped me up and carried me over his shoulder. Jezabel and Leah were lying on the ground, apparently unconscious.
“What happened?” I mumbled.
“Whatever you put in him made him dry out,” Lucian said. “The women will be incapacitated long enough for us to wall them in.”
“What will stop them from breaking out?”
“This,” Alaric said. He pulled out a small container that looked thick and heavy with metal. He carefully opened it, then rolled out a single, small onion into the room.
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