by Rebecca York
Gordo screamed again, then the night fell silent. As she watched in fascination, a figure emerged from the woods and started toward her.
She stared in disbelief. “Nick, is that you?”
“You’re bloody right it’s me. Did you think I’d let you face Caldwell by yourself?” Before she could answer, he plowed on. “And you’re damned lucky I found you. What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”
As he stalked toward her, she raised her chin—and the gun.
NICK TOOK note of the gun in Emma’s hand and kept walking.
“I see you’re not afraid of getting shot,” she said sarcastically. “But then, why should you be? You got shot in Baltimore. You should be dead. And don’t hand me that crap about the bullets missing you. I saw the shirt.”
When he was within five feet of her, she took a few backward steps. “Get away from me, you…vampire!”
Nick halted. The word hung in the air between them for a long moment.
“Emma,” he said quietly, “did I ever hurt you?”
“You took blood from me!” she cried.
He winced, feeling her anger and sense of betrayal. “If I hadn’t, I’d have died.” He thought it best not to mention the other times he’d sampled the nectar that ran in her veins.
“I trusted you.”
“Keep trusting me,” he said, hearing the gritty sound of his own voice.
“How can I?”
“Because I’d die myself before I’d let anyone hurt you. And if you need a more concrete reason, because I just saved you from one of Caldwell’s thugs. And because I have a plan to save your sister.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Why should I believe you?”
“Why shouldn’t you? Why would I be here at all if I weren’t sincere? Why would I have bothered to follow you?”
“Every time I asked you to help me, you said you’d think about it,” she accused.
“I’ve tried five times to attack Caldwell. He’s fought me off every time.”
She winced.
“I have a new plan.”
“What?”
“I’d rather not talk about it here.”
With a sigh, she lowered the gun, but when he took a step toward her, she backed away. “Don’t come near me. Please.”
“Okay,” he agreed, though he longed to fold her into his arms and hold her tight. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
Before she could say more, headlights blinked on behind her. Nick threw up his arm to protect his eyes from the sudden painful glare.
Damn! While they’d been standing here arguing, Caldwell had sent reinforcements.
Chapter Twelve
Whirling toward the headlights, Emma raised her gun straight at them.
“Don’t shoot,” said a steel-edged voice from the car belonging to the lights.
Relief came like a stiff breeze blowing off the water.
“Alex,” she said.
“Yeah. Were you planning to lure me here and drill me?”
“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m kidding. I hope.” He got out of the car and stepped around where she could see him in the twin beams. He was also armed, and his gaze was fixed on Nick as he asked, “Is this guy giving you any trouble?”
“No, he…” She shot Nick a quick glance. “He knocked out one of Caldwell’s men.”
Nick stepped forward. “And you are…?”
“Alex Shane.”
“A private detective who’s worked on the Eastern Shore for the past three years,” Nick supplied.
“And I assume you’re Nicholas Vickers, a P.I. who works in the Baltimore-Howard County area.”
“Correct.”
Emma watched the two men sizing each other up.
“You’re a little far from home,” Alex said.
“I followed Emma down here,” Nick replied. “How did you end up on this stretch of road in the middle of the night?”
“Emma called me.”
“I see.” Nick fixed his gaze on her. “And what were you planning to tell him?”
She licked suddenly dry lips. She’d intended to tell Alex Shane that Caldwell was a vampire. Suddenly that didn’t seem like such a smart idea. The explanation had been so vivid in her mind. Now it just sounded delusional.
“I was hoping he could help me figure out a way to get Margaret out of there,” she said in a small voice.
Nick held her gaze a moment longer, then turned his attention to Alex. With a nod toward the vehicle in the middle of the road, he said, “You’d better pull onto the shoulder and shut off those headlights, before someone wonders what’s going on.”
“What about Caldwell’s man?” Alex asked. “Is he in any shape to come after us?”
“Not unless he’s Houdini. I tied him up pretty tightly.”
Alex returned to his car and climbed inside. As soon as he started down the road, Nick turned back to her.
“Were you planning to tell him about me?”
“No!” Emma exclaimed.
He was silent for a moment, his expression unreadable in the darkness. “I’d like to talk you out of going in there tonight,” he said finally. “But if Caldwell knows you’re in the area, he may go after your sister in retaliation.”
Before she could answer, Alex came walking back toward them, looking uncertain.
“Is rushing over there tonight the best plan?” he asked. “Why don’t we wait until tomorrow, until we can collect some reinforcements.”
Nick shook his head. “We were just talking about that. Given that his guard was waiting for her, we have to assume Caldwell knows Emma is here and that she was planning to try to rescue her sister. We also have to assume he’ll soon know his goon failed to snatch her. Which means Margaret is at risk—tonight.”
“Yeah,” Alex conceded. “But I don’t like letting you go over there alone.”
Emma jumped in. “You can’t come with us, not after what you told me about your wife not wanting you to take risks. I’d never forgive myself if you got into trouble on my account.”
Alex gave her a considering look. “What about if you get into trouble?”
“If you don’t hear from us in three hours, call the cops,” Nick answered.
Alex sighed heavily. “Okay. I guess that’s the best we can do.”
As the two men exchanged looks, she wondered if either one of them believed that a rescue operation could work. Before Alex could make any objections, she said, “We should go. Do you have a boat?”
“Yeah, I do.”
He led them down the road several hundred feet, where an aluminum rowboat was hidden in a clump of marsh grass and cattails.
“I’ve used it to row over a couple of times,” Alex said.
“What if you don’t get it back?” Nick asked.
Alex shrugged. “The Light Street Detective Agency can take it as an insurance loss.”
Emma worked her way through the exchange. If they didn’t return the boat it would be because they were dead.
Alex pulled the rowboat out of its camouflage, then held the rope while Nick helped her in. She settled in the bow, and Nick climbed in after her, taking the middle seat.
As he reached for the oars, she felt a shiver go through her. Until this moment, she hadn’t thought about the implications of being alone with him again.
With a quiet “Good luck,” Alex gave them a hefty shove away from shore.
Nick began rowing. She watched him, silence stretching between them. Then, about fifty yards from shore, he stopped rowing. The boat glided a few feet, then was caught by the current and began to drift.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Double-crossing me?”
NICK SIGHED as he watched the nervous tension gather in Emma’s face. “No double cross,” he said. “We have to talk before we do this.”
“About what?” she challenged.
He rested his arms on the oars, keeping his gaze steady on her. �
��Can I assume you’ve deduced that Caldwell is a vampire?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, perhaps you also understand why I wasn’t eager to dash to your sister’s rescue. I’m a realist, Emma. Caldwell is many centuries older than I am, and a lot stronger. He’s also devious in a way that I am not, regardless of what you might believe.”
She gave a small, one-shouldered shrug and an even smaller nod.
Well, he thought, that was something.
He continued. “Caldwell uses his personal magnetism—and I’ll grant that he does have that—as well as his vampiric powers to gather people to him. As I’m sure you must realize, those people are nothing more than food to him.”
Her hands were clamped over the gunwales, as though to steady herself. And her upset could only get worse. The truth was brutal, but she needed to know it. All of it.
“I told you that I was one of the Master’s trusted inner circle.” Nick paused, then added, “That was in 1852.”
He heard her suck in a breath.
Resolutely, he continued. “I thought he was a great leader. I helped defend his castle against a horde of villagers who were desperate to kill the vampire lording it over their land. I was mortally wounded in the attack. He told me that he could save me, but that it would mean becoming like him. I didn’t understand what that meant at first. But I learned. And for a while it was true—I was exactly like him. I fed on humans, as he did, and it didn’t occur to me to do otherwise.”
Unable to bear the revulsion on Emma’s face, Nick shifted his gaze to the moonlit surface of the river. Forcing himself to keep going, he said, “When Jeanette joined the enclave, everything changed. She was good and innocent, and loving her reminded me of my humanity, which made me see what a monster Damien Caldwell was—and what a monster I myself had become.”
Shooting Emma a quick glance, he muttered, “I’m no paragon, but I’ve tried to use my life—my knowledge and skills, including my enhanced abilities—if not for good, at least in a way that does no harm. I stopped draining the blood from mortals before Caldwell killed Jeanette. These days, I feed on the deer that live in the woods around my house.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “I’d go into a full recitation of my good works, but we’d better get back to Caldwell.”
Returning his gaze to Emma, hoping it wasn’t merely wishful thinking that she looked slightly less revolted, he said, “Unfortunately, there’s no way we can simply march into the Refuge and get to your sister. Caldwell has too many loyal followers and, as you know, plenty of guards.”
“Then…” She looked toward the far shore, then back at him. “What are we going to do?”
“Kill Caldwell.”
She looked thunderstruck. “You mean drive an oak stake through his heart?”
“That’s the traditional method, although any sort of stake will do, as long as it causes all the blood to drain from the body. But Caldwell is hardly going to stand still for it.”
“So…”
“I’ve been developing a weapon that I think will kill him.” He reached into his knapsack and took out the small object he’d brought along.
Emma looked at the black tube, which had a glass-covered light at one end. “You’re going to kill him with a flashlight?”
Nick suppressed a smile. “It’s a laser gun.”
“Like in Star Trek?”
At that, he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Right, and I’m James T. Kirk, so of course, Caldwell doesn’t stand a chance against me. A million to one odds are nothing to me.”
“That much, I believe,” she whispered.
Nick sobered. “Emma, I can only try to—”
“You do have a better chance against him than anybody else,” she said, “because no one could possibly understand him better than you do.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and he knew quite well what she’d left unsaid: She realized why he was the best one, maybe the only one, who could destroy the Master. But that didn’t mean she trusted him or wanted to be near him. On a personal level, the jury was still out—and it didn’t look to him as if the verdict was going to be in his favor.
Nick got on with the business at hand. “I told you I designed video games. But this laser isn’t a toy.” He pointed the business end at the water and pressed the button on the side. A beam of red light shot out of the front, and where it hit the river, the water sizzled and boiled. After several seconds, he switched it off.
Emma looked from the water to the weapon, then to him. “That’s amazing.”
He hefted the tool in his hand. “It’s also dangerous. The beam will cut through flesh and bone.”
Her eyes widened. “Have you tested it?”
“On roadkill.”
As he watched her try to wipe that image from her mind, he hurried on. “I was in the process of designing a safety catch, but you arrived on my doorstep and, since then, there hasn’t been time to work on it. Just don’t press the button accidentally. Here—” Holding the weapon so that it pointed at the water, he leaned forward to hand it to her.
She drew back. “You want me to use it?”
“It makes sense. No, wait—listen to me. Caldwell will be expecting an attack from me, which means I can distract him. And while he’s focused on me, with some luck, you’ll be in a position to use the laser. Just make sure you aim for the heart.”
She was silent a moment, chewing on her full bottom lip. “What if he doesn’t come after you?”
Nick snorted. “Believe me, he will. Our mutual hatred is long-standing and very personal. He’ll go after me. And you’ll go after him. And when he’s out of the way, you’ll get Margaret out of there, then call the police.”
“But they’ll arrest me for killing him.”
Nick shook his head. “There won’t be any evidence. If Caldwell is left in direct sunlight, his body will incinerate.”
“I thought he could tolerate sunlight,” Emma said, frowning.
“He can, because he uses a kind of mind control over the cells of his body. But once he’s dead, his power will cease to exist.”
Still suspicious, she asked, “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “I read about it.”
“But isn’t the stuff written about vampires a bunch of myths?”
“Most of it, yes. But there are some authoritative texts. In limited editions, of course. They’re written by vampires.”
“Why would they write about themselves?”
He shrugged. “Lots of reasons, I suppose. The need to communicate, to tell their stories, to help other vampires…just to brag?” He shrugged again. “Why does anyone write a book?”
She was playing with the string tie of her loose fitting slacks, her gaze directed at her lap. “You’ve met them? These other vampires?”
He hesitated, then nodded. How odd it felt to admit these things, to talk freely about what he was. He had never told anyone, not a single soul, and frankly, doing so terrified him. He was handing Emma the power to destroy his life—perhaps to destroy him. But he wanted her to know the truth because…
Because he loved her. He loved her as he had never loved any other woman.
She had fled from him, frightened by half truths and myths, hurt and justifiably angry that he’d lied to her. He didn’t doubt for an instant that she would run away again. But at least she would know the truth. He hoped she might someday come to understand him and his life and why he had lied in an effort to protect her—and himself. He had to admit that part.
But she didn’t know how much he ached to have everything be different. He had pictured the two of them living a normal life. Husband and wife. Making love at night. Getting up in the morning together. Raising children together. When he thought about everything that he could never have with her, he felt a giant hole open up in his heart.
But he kept that secret sorrow locked away. He couldn’t burden her with any of his own terrible longings.
And he was certain
she already understood that he could never be the lover, the mate, she needed and deserved to have.
Careful to keep his inner turmoil out of his voice, he answered her question. “The only other vampire I’ve known well is Caldwell. But I’ve met some who’ve formed covens. Most, like me, seem to prefer living alone.”
She shot him a glance from under lowered lashes. “Where are these books you’ve read?”
“In my library.”
“I didn’t see them.”
He gave a small, crooked smile. “I keep the good stuff locked up in the cabinet behind the globe.” His hands tightened on the oars again. “We can talk more about this later, if you’re interested. And if we get out of the Refuge in one piece.”
Her head snapped up, all the courage and determination he so admired in her coming to the fore. “We will,” she insisted.
“I hope so.” He didn’t dare hope, however, that she’d ever again give him the chance to be with her.
He resumed rowing. “So we’re agreed on our strategy?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not unless you’ve got a better plan.”
She sighed, then shook her head.
“All right, then.”
EMMA WATCHED Nick row, his steady strokes taking them toward the edge of the estate, inside the razor-wire–topped electric fence but not close enough to it to set off the alarms. She couldn’t deny that seeing his well-muscled shoulders and arms work the oars caused a fluttering warmth in her belly. It would have been a pleasure simply to watch his athletic performance if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire.
And if she weren’t so numb with shock from the things he’d told her. She had to keep reminding herself that he was here to help her, that he had no reason at all to hurt her, that if he’d wanted to hurt her, seriously hurt her, he could have done so long before now. And yet…he was a vampire.
A vampire!
Could she ever trust him, truly and completely? Suppose she put aside the lies he’d told her to protect his identity, which she might—might!—forgive. Could she be certain he wouldn’t lie about other, far more important things? Things like whether or not he would ever give in to the temptation to drink her blood?
