CURSES FLEW rapid-fire from Jerome’s mouth as he burst into his chambers and snatched the dagger and its belt from the hook on the wall. He knew he was taking a risk going out to fight with the latest effects of the magnetic shift still with him. The urgency in Ambrose’s voice, however, had overridden any concern he had for himself. Members of his cadre were in trouble, and as their leader his place was with them, regardless of the risk.
He touched the ring on his finger. He would be taking as much protection with him as possible. Without wasting another thought on a decision he knew he wouldn’t change, he left through the secret passageway on the side of the hill where his house sat. In a matter of seconds he was behind the wheel of his Corvette, another string of curses piercing the silence of the quiet upscale neighborhood. He was grateful for the Corvette’s speed, but angry because once again his damned affliction forced him to rely on modern technology.
He pushed the speed limit on the way to the Berkeley Pier, the spot where the confrontation with Solotov and his gang of evil vampires had taken place last night. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why his arch enemy had chosen the same site for this battle. Solotov had to know members of Jerome’s cadre would be patrolling the area. He no doubt hoped to eliminate as many adversaries as possible before the earthquake struck.
I’ll see you reduced to ashes for all eternity before that happens, Jerome shouted mentally, as he braked the car to a grinding halt. The screech of his tires was barely audible over the shouts and screams of the warriors less than fifty feet away.
Jerome leapt from the car before the engine shut down completely. Dense fog shrouded the area and for a second his vision was obscured. Once his eyes adjusted to the hazy scene he assessed the battlefield. There were more than a dozen combatants in all. He noted immediately that his men were slightly outnumbered. Already several vampires had fallen, some of them his own. He recognized one of the fallen as the newest member of his cadre. He swore violently as he leaped into the fray.
He spotted Ambrose battling with one of Solotov’s men, and Stephen, another of his cadre, holding his own with a vampire Jerome knew was almost as old and powerful as Solotov. He looked around quickly for an enemy he could eliminate to level the battlefield.
Jerome chose a vampire in combat with one of his own less experienced vamps. He unsheathed his dagger, beheaded the enemy quickly and then similarly struck down a second who had the misfortune to get in his way. When the field was level again, he focused his attention on locating Solotov.
The two leaders saw each other at the same time, both taking to the air and landing within feet of one another, their mutual hatred palpable in the dense fog that surrounded them. The first to act, Jerome sprang forward. Solotov, obviously prepared for Jerome’s superior strength, jumped back quickly.
“I see you made it this time,” Solotov taunted, reminding Jerome of the woman he had been too late to save the night before.
Jerome flinched at the image Solotov’s words called forth. But in a mental flash, the lone, lost woman was replaced by the tens of thousands that would be helpless prey to Solotov and his followers if they were still around after the earthquake struck. No matter what it took, Jerome vowed, he would not let that happen.
The two leaders eyed each other warily, waiting for an opening. Solotov was the first to break the silence that hung between them, his words preceded by a chilling laugh.
“How’s the woman in your house holding up?”
The unexpected question rendered Jerome speechless.
“Cat got your tongue? Or does it surprise you beyond words that I know about her?”
Pure instinct urged Jerome to pounce on his enemy and cut out his evil tongue, but a flash of everything at stake, and the catastrophe that would follow if he made a mistake in judgment, held him back. He could not let Solotov goad him into a rash and fatal move.
Jerome forced himself to take a step back while he formulated a plan.
Solotov misread the action as weakness and continued his taunting. “Do you really trust that old hag to keep your woman safe during the daylight hours?”
Fury raced through Jerome at the thought that his home was under surveillance while he slept. His partially descended fangs dropped to their full length. His fingers tightened around the handle of his dagger.
Solotov raised his sword. Of the two weapons, the sword had the advantage of length. The dagger, however, had the power of the Goddess Lilith behind it, adding additional strength to the ancient copper from which it was crafted and the magic stones that adorned it.
Because the dagger required close physical contact, Jerome plunged forward, closing the distance Solotov had created between them moments earlier. This time, Solotov was not so prepared and the dagger caught him in the chest. Not one to let a slight wound slow him down, Solotov was quick to retaliate, bringing his sword down at an angle, aiming for Jerome’s throat. The blow missed its target, glanced off Jerome’s shoulder and sliced his arm above his bicep.
Blood poured from Jerome’s wound and he bit down on his tongue to stifle a cry of pain. From the look of Solotov’s wound, it was deeper than his own, and the sight of it provided the impetus for Jerome to land another strike above the first cut. This one was not as deep as the first, but the two together dealt Solotov a harsh, if not fatal, blow.
With a piercing wail and a promise to make Jerome pay dearly, Solotov took to the air. Once again cursing his inability to physically transport himself, Jerome could do nothing more than watch his hated rival flee without opposition to a place where he could heal his injuries.
It was not the way he would have preferred the battle to end. But he drew some comfort from the fact that he had dealt the more serious injuries. For now that would have to suffice. More pressing at the moment was his own injury. While not fatal, the wound in his arm was more painful than it should be, due, Jerome was certain, to the damned magnetic affliction that was taking its toll on his body. It was time for him to head home.
He scanned the area to see if he was needed again before he left. Everything seemed to be under control. The battle had ended, for tonight at least, and the only vampires standing belonged to his cadre.
As Jerome turned to leave he found Ambrose in front of him, worry creasing his brow. “You’re injured.”
Jerome shrugged. “It’s nothing. I’ll survive.”
Ambrose extended his hand, palm up. “The keys. I’m driving you home.”
Jerome glanced down at his arm, then back up at his second-in-command. He wanted to take Ambrose up on his offer but sometimes pride was more important than good sense. “You know that nobody but me drives the ‘Vette.”
“Jerome—”
Jerome looked over Ambrose’s shoulder. “Take care of your men. Some of them don’t look so good. And we need this crap cleaned up before somebody comes along that can cause us real trouble.”
“You should let me drive. Suppose you grow weak—”
Jerome fought hard to ignore the throbbing in his arm while he kept his voice steady. “Your men need you more than I do,” he snapped. With a flourish of his hand in the direction of the remainder of the cadre who were dragging and lifting the broken bodies of the enemy, he added, gruffly, “See to it that matters here are taken care of directly.”
Turning away from his subordinate, Jerome strode toward the Corvette, each step like another sword stroke to his arm.
After he climbed into the car, a noticeable weakness began to invade his body, and he gripped the steering wheel of the car tightly in both hands. The pain from his injury worsened. By sheer force of will he made himself concentrate on the highway still heavy with traffic, despite the late hour.
It would do him no good to be stopped by the police and have to explain his wound and the fangs that were still partially extended because of the adrenaline rushing t
hrough his body. And the way his luck was running tonight he would no doubt be stopped by a cop who was a nonbeliever in his kind.
Relief flooded through him when at last he pulled into his garage. His arm was almost numb from pain and loss of blood, and he was still bleeding freely. It was vital that he get to his bedroom and inside his coffin without delay. Staggering, he found the outside entrance to his quarters. It took his remaining strength to open the door, and he all but fell into the welcoming darkness.
He had just started unbuttoning his blood-soaked shirt when the pounding on his door began.
Chapter Seven
DOTTIE POUNDED with the heel of her shoe on the steel reinforced door to Jerome’s living quarters. She’d been in her room reading, after spending an hour deliberating whether or not to call Julian, when she heard the car door slam shut outside her window. Looking out, she’d seen Jerome walking toward the back of the house, one of his arms held close to his chest. In the second before he disappeared from view the bright moonlight gave her a perfect view of his blood-soaked shirt.
Her immediate reaction had been to rush to his side and help him, but the memory of the blood he’d taken from her without her knowledge stopped her short at her bedroom door. Dare she trust him? Yes, she’d argued as she opened the door and stepped into the hall. He had acted out of necessity. Vampires were not like ordinary men. Right or wrong, he was hurt and she had to help him.
She continued hammering the door with her shoe. Because of the door’s thickness she couldn’t detect any sounds from within the room, but she knew Jerome was in there and sooner or later he would have to open the door. Unless . . . Unless he couldn’t make it to the door. She pounded harder.
She had just pulled her hand back to give another whack with her shoe when the door opened a couple of inches. His body shielded by the door, Jerome peered at her through the narrowed opening, his features barely visible in the room’s dim light.
“What is it?”
In reaction to Jerome’s sharpness, Dottie caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She knew this was not going to be easy. “I’d like to talk to you about something.”
A pause. “It will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“It can’t wait.” When he didn’t reply, she inhaled deeply, then quickly added, “I know you’re injured. I want to help.”
A longer pause. She swallowed hard and held her breath.
“It’s nothing for you to be concerned about. Go back upstairs and we’ll talk tonight,” Jerome insisted.
“I’m not leaving.” She was not giving up without a fight. This was much too important.
The silence that followed lasted so long Dottie braced herself for the door to slam shut in her face. Instead, it opened wide enough for her to enter.
When she stepped inside the darkened room, Jerome seemed to come from nowhere to block her way.
“You saw me when I came home?”
She nodded. Unsure whether or not he could see the gesture, she said, “Yes, I saw you.”
“You were spying on me?”
Spying on him? For a moment her concern for him was replaced by anger, which she quickly tamped down. His abrasiveness was probably a defense mechanism. And she had to remember he was injured, perhaps seriously.
“I was still awake when you came back. I heard your car.” When he didn’t interrupt she said, “How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s just a scratch. It will be healed by nightfall.”
Her eyes had adjusted somewhat to the low light. Jerome moved deeper into the room and she followed. She still felt uneasy, expecting at any moment for him to turn around and order her to leave. But Jerome had made his way to the king-size bed in the middle of the room. He sat on the edge and began removing his shirt.
“For your own good, it would be best if you left.” Most of the harshness had left his voice, but he still sounded resolute.
She was just as determined as he was to stand her ground. “I have some experience with injuries, and I‘ve had several courses in emergency medicine. Private detectives often find themselves in life-threatening situations.”
“No course you could have taken would have prepared you for dealing with my kind of injury. I’m a vampire, remember?”
In spite of his continued objections to her offer of help, she could tell by his voice that he was growing weak. Her determination grew strong. “You still bleed the same as I do.”
He sighed in obvious exasperation. “But I don’t heal the same as you do.”
How could she answer that? She had run out of sensible arguments. She was trying to figure out another route to take when Jerome sprang from the side of the bed. Suddenly, the room was flooded with light. And what she saw across the room caused her to lose her breath.
Resting on a platform level with the bed’s mattress was a coffin. An honest to God coffin! After the initial shock wore off and she was able to breathe again, she realized the coffin wasn’t at all like any she had ever seen before.
There was no white cushioned interior found in modern-day caskets. Nor was there a mound of dirt inside it, as traditional vampire legends proclaimed. The interior to Jerome’s coffin was lined entirely with copper, its ancient beauty reflecting back into the room as it caught the lamp light.
She wrapped her arms tight around her waist. “I never expected this,” she said, forcing each word past the knot in her throat.
“Still insist on staying?” There was sarcasm in Jerome’s tone, and the look he gave her was not in any sense hospitable. He clearly wanted her out of here.
And she clearly was not leaving. Especially since his words had forced her to look away from the ghastly coffin and take her first good look at him. The gash in his arm went clear to the bone.
Jerome sat again on the bed and tugged viciously at the shirt sleeve still covering his uninjured arm. When he was finally free of it he threw the blood-soaked remnant to the floor. Balancing himself on the edge of the bed with the hand of his good arm, he got to his feet and steadied himself with the back of his legs against the mattress.
Without thinking, Dottie rushed to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me help. You’re in no condition to do this alone.”
She looked around for a door that would indicate a bathroom. Hoping he was not too weak to stand unaided, she fled across the room. When she returned with a hand towel Jerome was in the same place she’d left him. Sweat covered his brow.
She touched his shoulder lightly, gently urging him to sit again. The fact that he had stopped resisting her gave her pause. He really was in a bad way. She dabbed at his face with the towel. “I wouldn’t have thought vampires perspired.” It was probably a stupid thing to say, but she hoped it would lighten things up a bit.
“I wasn’t always a vampire. Nor will I be one for very long, if Julian has his way.”
Dottie recalled what little Simone had shared with her about the Whitcombe triplets and their eventual return to mortality, a gift from the Goddess Lilith.
Now that she had met two of the three brothers, she was eager to learn more about the future that had been promised them. In particular she was anxious to find out why Jerome appeared to have some hesitancy about reclaiming his humanity. This was certainly not the time to pursue the subject, however. There was a more important concern at hand.
Jerome was badly injured and while she doubted his wound was fatal to a vampire, she knew it would eventually weaken him. Drawn out to a logical conclusion, his weakness, if not corrected, could possibly lead to his destruction. This was especially true now that it was obvious there was an enemy somewhere out there that he would need all of his strength to fight.
And then there was that problem with balance that he continued to deny, but she knew existed as surely as she breathed. She couldn’t contain the ironic chuckle t
hat broke forth.
What a pair they were. He was having trouble standing and she couldn’t stay awake.
She had managed to wrap the towel around his wound without any resistance from him. But now he reached out with his uninjured arm and pushed her away.
“If you really want to help, then help me get to that,” Jerome said brusquely, nodding in the direction of the coffin.
She did as he asked, supporting some of his weight with an arm around his waist as he crossed the short distance to the open coffin.
It wasn’t until he was settled inside the ghastly thing that the full impact of what she had just done hit her. For a moment she thought she’d lose her supper from hours earlier. But then the nausea passed, Jerome closed his eyes and his features slackened and softened.
“These extra hours of sleep will heal me,” he said so softly she almost missed the last few words. He began to speak again, so she leaned down close, her ear just inches from his lips.
“Close the door tightly when you leave. And stay indoors today.” She thought he was finished speaking and had lifted her head, ready to leave, when he whispered, “Danger.”
At the door, she turned back for one last look and once again her stomach roiled. Bile rose up in her throat. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to forget the sight of Jerome inside a coffin.
In more ways than one she dreaded the hours that stretched before her. She would have to rethink the telephone call to Julian she had earlier decided against.
And she would still have to face Jerome when he awoke. Would she be the recipient of his gratitude or his anger for the help she had foisted on him? Only time would tell.
As she closed the door firmly behind her, she imagined she heard a murmured, “Thank you, Thea.”
Had she heard correctly, or was her mind playing tricks on her?
AS THE CURATIVE powers of the copper seeped into his body, Jerome was forced to acknowledge how much his strength had ebbed. That his body had betrayed him after such a minor injury stung to the quick. Usually by this time after the infliction of a wound he would be almost completely healed. The last glance at the wound before Thea bound it with the towel had shown the gash in his arm to be as bad as when Solotov had delivered it.
The Vampire Jerome Page 7
