by Luxie Ryder
“A man…down there…” She pointed towards the apartment.
“Did someone hurt you?” the other officer asked, unclipping the holster at his belt and putting his hand over the revolver.
Her ragged breathing frustrated her attempts to tell them what had happened. “Two men. In the bedroom. David. He’s dead.” The last word came out in a barely audible moan as a sob stole her voice.
“You’re safe now. Which apartment, ma’am? You stay here while we check it out.”
She told them, still crying and shivering when they locked her in the car. Amber looked past them through the windows and out into the darkness—sure she could feel Bane’s predatory gaze on her.
Chapter Five
Bane peered in through the window of the one storey building again. The police were still interrogating Amber, three hours after they’d first taken her in for questioning.
He’d let things slip badly out of control. Hiding David’s body should have been his first priority after killing the assassin Katerina had sent. His concern for Amber’s safety had made him sloppy. Had he learnt nothing in the two hundred years since he’d failed to save Mary’s life?
And now, Amber was a suspect in David’s murder. She hadn’t yet been charged, but he could hear the detectives in an adjacent room, discussing her implausible tale. They didn’t believe the fantastic tale she’d spun about the two intruders, neither of whom left any evidence proving their existence. Bane knew they would soon look for fingerprints and that all they would find were David’s and hers.
Tracking her to the police station had been easy. Watching and waiting while she sat in the middle of the dark street had proven harder. He’d seen Amber looking out of the car window and she’d all but stared right at him on the roof of David’s apartment building.
The detectives strolled back into the room where she waited for them. “Mrs. Kirkwood, we’ve got a problem.”
“Look, I know my description of the guy sounds insane, but he really was that big.” Tired and besieged, she seemed to no longer care whether they believed her or not.
“The thing is,” one of them said as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “nobody saw anyone going in or out of the building. And the film we got from the security camera confirms you and David were the only ones to enter his apartment.”
“But that’s impossible. I told you—”
“I know what you told us Ms. Kirkwood and, frankly, you need a lawyer.”
Bane weighed the new information. Night was already giving way to dawn and he didn’t have time to act. Amber would be going nowhere for the foreseeable future. Daylight would guarantee her safety for at least a few more hours and he needed to use the remaining darkness to hunt and find a place to sleep.
The semi-rural location made finding food easy. Within minutes, he’d taken down a deer, satiating his thirst. Chasing stupid herbivores wasn’t exactly his favourite sport and did nothing to release his pent up frustrations, but it would have to do. Returning to the station within minutes, he found the detectives putting Amber in a holding cell while they waited for a public defender to drive over from Augusta.
“It’ll be a while. Do you want something to eat?” one of them offered.
Amber shook her head and turned her back on them to lie down on the tiny bed pushed against the only brick wall. Bane heard her breathing become erratic as soon as the men left her alone, and he didn’t have to wait for the gentle sob that tore from her to know she was crying.
The urge to smash through the wall and get her out of the situation almost overwhelmed him but the first rays of the morning sun breaking over the roof of the police station stopped him. Finding shelter was more important, and not just for his sake. He’d be no good to her dead.
A door down into the basement at the side of the building opened without resistance. Bane slipped inside, scanning the darkness of the room and finding the perfect spot to rest beside an old generator. Squeezing between the metal housing and the wall, he crawled to the back corner of the recess and sank down into a squat. Grateful that comfort was a luxury his kind could sleep without, he closed his eyes. Again, he stilled his own breathing to lock onto Amber’s heartbeat, coming from somewhere beyond the wall behind him.
Little disturbed his rest in the hours that followed, save for a short time where he listened as she prayed fervently for help from her god. Bane grimaced while he listened to the good Catholic put her fate in the hands of a mythical being. The sad irony was that people didn’t believe in the vampires or werewolves living and walking amongst them, yet so many of them allowed their lives to be dominated by a blind faith in something they could not see, hear or touch.
If such a supreme being existed, by whatever name, then Bane would not. No benevolent creator would allow such an atrocity. A loving god would not have stood idly by as Bane’s wife and child were slaughtered by one of Satan’s creatures. A heavenly father would not have condemned him to centuries of endless night filled with an anguish that would never fade.
Yet he envied her. He longed for her faith and for her innocence—an innocence he would have to shatter very soon in order to make her understand why she needed his help.
Back in the dark days when his existence revolved around making the world pay for his torment—when he would have hunted good Christians such as Amber—so many of her kind put their hope of salvation in the crucifixes they would clutch to protect themselves from him. Shattering their faith always gave him a perverse satisfaction, maybe even more so than taking their blood. As he let them know that the god they put their trust in would ultimately fail them too.
In a relatively short time, for an immortal at least, he’d come to find the whole thing distasteful. He’d been about to take another victim—a strong, young slave—when his wife had thrown herself at Bane’s feet. Her pleas for mercy had no effect on his dead heart and extinct compassion and he had pushed her to one side. He would take her too. But the woman’s love for her husband outweighed her fear of death, and she cut her wrists with a jagged blade to draw Bane’s attention away from the man cowering in a corner. Bane had turned to her, coldly fascinated by her willingness to die, and asked her why she was so eager to sacrifice herself to save her husband.
“I love him more than life,” was all she had said, her eyes wide with fear but holding the vampire’s gaze despite her obvious terror. She had looked over towards her husband, to find him crawling across the floor towards the open doorway of their pitiful shack, trying to escape. Something died in her eyes as she watched the love of her life abandon her to save his own skin. When she turned back to Bane to await her destiny, her face twisted in desolation, he knew anything he could do to her would be a blessed relief from the agony of her husband’s betrayal.
She made him think of Mary and the way his wife might have begged for his life and that of their unborn child if she’d been given the chance. But the vampire she’d encountered that night had been Katerina. Katerina hadn’t been raised human and didn’t understand such emotions.
The slave girl had closed her eyes, assuming her fate was sealed. For the first time, Bane fought against the instincts that drove him, knowing if he took her now he would be forever unworthy of Mary’s love. The control he gained over his urges at that moment freed him forever from the mental shackles of his affliction. He’d walked away without touching her, ignoring the snivelling coward crawling on his belly in the dirt, and had never taken another human life through blood lust since. He only killed now on the orders of The Fratia and, even then, never for food.
Amber spent the remainder of the day in her cell alone, except for a brief time when the lawyer spoke with her. “They won’t release you until they have the results of the autopsy.”
Bane had listened to Amber give her version of events to the attorney. “I never saw the attacker clearly but I could tell there was something seriously wrong with him.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was the screaming—
like a wild animal but not really. I’ve never heard a noise like it.”
“And this, what was his name…Bane? This Bane, did he seem surprised by the actions of the other man?”
Amber hadn’t replied straight away. “Not at all. He seemed to be anticipating his every move.”
The other woman pressed her further. “Do you think this Bane knew him then?”
“I don’t know. I guess so, or he wouldn’t have known that he planned to attack us.”
“Why do you think they were in David’s apartment?”
“Before I got away from him, Bane told me David had seen something he shouldn’t have and that talking about it was what had got him killed.”
“Had David said anything to you about this?”
“Well, he said something had happened on the island after the landslide. He told me some huge guy had saved me. That was the story he was planning to tell the press anyway. I dismissed it as fantasy until earlier today when I started to think about it. Except for the part about the man having superhuman powers, he could have been describing Bane.”
“Superhuman powers?” Bane could hear the derision in the other woman’s tone. “Look, Amber—”
“That’s what he said. I’m aware of how crazy all this sounds.” Amber’s voice became strained. “Nobody is going to believe a word of what I’m saying, are they?”
“As I was about to remind you, you’ve had a traumatic experience and you are still recovering from a head injury. Give yourself a little time to think about what you actually want to say before they question you again, okay? We’re gonna have a little problem with your credibility if you tell them what you told me. To be honest, I’m not surprised they arrested you.”
“What else can I tell them but the truth?”
“We can talk more tomorrow. Sleep on it tonight, okay?”
“Can’t I go home? I just want to go home.”
The pitiful plea in Amber’s voice tugged at Bane’s conscience. Was she really better off alive considering the dual predicaments she now faced? He should have left the island and kept his distance, but it was too late for regrets. No matter how sorry he felt, his actions had blighted her existence and all because she looked like Mary.
The lawyer’s tone had at least been kind. “They can hold you up to twenty four hours without charge, longer in some cases. We can’t do anything until they either charge you or let you go.”
The lawyer left, promising to return in the morning or when they charged her, whichever was sooner, and Amber had cried herself to sleep again. Again, the guilt gnawed at his gut and a need to go offer her comfort came from nowhere. Not that she would want anything from him—he terrified her—and with good reason. Her pitiful sobbing continued for hours, preventing Bane from resting further although he had no choice but to remain sheltered there until dark.
Emerging from the basement when the sun sank low enough in the sky to cast the police station and its grounds in shadow, he avoided Amber’s cell and fought the temptation to check on her. Tormented by guilt at the absolute knowledge that he had caused the pain she suffered, he had no desire to twist the knife deeper by looking into her tear-stained face. He would face her later, when the time came to move.
Bane climbed a nearby tree pitched into darkness by the long evening shadows and waited until the shift changed again. The day-long vigil he’d kept over Amber had offered up hidden benefits—such as the opportunity to study the policemen and their routines. He could hear them now, talking and laughing, sharing anecdotes about the day, and he knew that they would be distracted for many minutes. Bane could be in and out before the noise of the wall being torn apart alerted them to the fact that something was wrong. But he had Amber to consider. It would be best to wait until there were less police nearby to train their guns on her.
Happier now he had some kind of plan in place, he closed his eyes, unable to resist the opportunity to grab a little more sleep. He could hear Amber picking at the meal they had brought her. She hadn’t eaten much but, considering how bad it smelt even from this far away, he didn’t blame her. But at least the mundane routine of eating a meal seemed to distract her long enough that she calmed down.
The aroma of her meatloaf dinner evaporated and Bane couldn’t be sure if she’d eaten it all, or if he’d simply got used to the odour—but then another, all too familiar scent made the hairs on his neck rise. He spun on his heel and scanned the hillside surrounding the building, looking for the source.
One of Katerina’s minions broke cover from the trees, his motions almost a blur as he tore through the valley.
Bane took off at a run to intercept the approach, leaping from the tree to land in front of Amber’s cell, knowing he had the advantage of age and experience over the young vampire who had moved close enough for Bane to recognise him. They had never met each other in combat—the youth was not a fighter—and Bane wondered at Levi’s willingness to abandon his usual pastime of whoring and debauching his way across the South to do Katerina’s bidding.
Levi hissed and tried to jump free when Bane snuck around behind him and caught hold of the back of his jacket. Spinning the boy, he threw him to the ground, placing a foot on his chest to keep him down. The young vampire spat in fury and bared his teeth at his attacker, but then a wide smile transformed his face, turning him from demon to angel in an instant.
“Bane. Of course. Who else would Katerina send to kill her?”
Bane didn’t correct the boy. The confusion could only help the situation and maybe he could allow Levi to get away with his life. “If you knew that, then why did you come?”
Levi took the hand Bane offered and leapt to his feet, his humiliation apparently forgotten. “Trying to get the reward. You don’t mind some healthy competition, do you?”
“Reward?”
“You don’t know about the reward? Katerina has put a bounty on her. The first of us to bring back the woman’s head will be given a permanent seat on the Council.”
Bane smiled, despite his savage rage at Katerina’s amoral scheming. “Ah, I see. No, I hadn’t heard. Well, you are too late. They’ve released her.” He shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. Lying had never been one of Bane’s long suits. “My guess is she’s on her way back to Augusta.”
Levi wasn’t as green as Bane hoped. “You wouldn’t be trying to put me off the scent, would you?”
“Check for yourself. It’ll give me a head start.”
Bane turned and ran for the hills, knowing his actions would lead Levi away from Amber. Outrunning him without much effort, he circled back through the trees when he knew Levi could no longer see him. Bane hoped they were all as stupid as the youth.
Downwind of the station, he caught another scent a split-second before the sound of her muffled gasps chilled his dead soul.
Levi hadn’t come alone.
* * * *
The hand clamped over Amber’s mouth crushed her lips against her teeth but the pain barely registered. The pressure building in her chest hurt the most as her screams were halted by the arm pressed across her throat.
Amber’s gaze darted around the room, landing on the hole in the outer wall to her cell. Two huge grey blocks had been torn away from the bottom of the tiny window, and whoever it was that now held her in an iron grip had passed through it.
“Come with me,” her captor said into her ear, his soft words at odds with his hard grip on her body. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
Amber fought against the heaviness invading her limbs. The voice seeped into her bones, sucking the resistance from her until she fell limp in her attacker’s arms. A part of her brain screamed that she should fight but the voice seemed to drown it out and, as the hand clasped over her mouth slid away, she found she had no desire to call for help.
Struggling to lift her eyelids, Amber turned around and tried to focus on the face swimming in and out of her vision. The person smiling down at her had the same strange eyes as Bane…except it wasn’t Bane
. This large and frightening man had no kindness in his face and every part of her being knew he intended to harm her. Her flesh crawled when he lifted her hand to his lips and trailed a kiss across her skin as he pulled her towards the opening in the wall. He released her to leap up into the cavity in a single bound, making her dizzy as her eyes tried to follow his movement.
“Shall we?” he asked in the same silky tone, offering his arm to her as if inviting her onto the dance floor. Amber reached for him and he grabbed her hands to pull her up to him. Again, she wanted to fight, scream, run…but she couldn’t do anything but do as he asked.
“Good girl,” he said, lifting her into his arms and cradling her to his chest as he jumped to the ground.
“I’ll take it from here,” another voice said, from somewhere behind them, a voice she recognised despite the fog clouding her brain.
The man holding her tensed and began to vibrate as a low, rumbling growl built in his chest where her ear was pressed into him. Amber’s fear reawakened and she struggled for release. The stupor she had felt only moments before disappeared as he threw her to the dirt, as if tired of her squirming, and turned his back on her.
“Bane,” he said, bowing his head in greeting. “I fear you are too late to claim the prize. As you can see, I got here first. “
Bane crossed his arms, leaning against the wall. “In that case, I would say we have a problem, Milo.
“Amber, move away from him and whatever happens, don’t make a sound. Your very life depends on it.”
Bane’s stare didn’t waver from the man who had taken her, his eyes full of barely restrained murderous rage that she realised she had not yet seen from Bane. He had never looked at her that way. She stayed on her knees as she inched across the ground, keeping her gaze on them as she felt her way with her hands, terrified Milo would turn at any second and stop her.
