BloodBorn

by Linda Jones Linda Howard

  “I … I …”

  “Spit it out.”

  “I haven’t been sleeping well,” Nevada said. She wanted to sit up, but he remained bent over her so close she couldn’t move without touching him. He didn’t move back; he wanted her to be scared, but instead she just looked surprised.

  “I barely slept a wink last night … during the day … whenever my last sleep cycle was,” she explained. “I was exhausted. No wonder I can’t sleep. I’m never sure if it’s day or night, if I’ve been asleep eight hours or two. You know, a clock would be a nice addition to this room. Is that too much to ask for? A freakin’ clock?”

  She was trying to change the subject, but he didn’t let her distract him. “You’re running out of time,” he whispered, his nose almost touching hers.

  “I know; you’ve told me again and again,” she said sharply. “But if I can’t keep my eyes open, how am I supposed to work? I’m so tired I can barely think.”

  “Coffee? Red Bull? Any drug known to mankind and some not known? All you have to do is ask. You’re a powerful witch, Nevada. Create your own remedy.”

  Sorin backed away from her and stood. With a grateful sigh, Nevada sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Maybe some coffee would be a good idea. I’m afraid to use any drugs; it might affect the spells. I’m just learning, you know; my magic is new, and more fragile than you can imagine.”

  “Your little sister is also fragile,” Sorin responded, instinctively going for the threat that cut her the deepest. “Emily.” He allowed the name to roll off his tongue as if it tasted sweet.

  Nevada shot to her feet, her eyes wide with fear and anger. “Leave her alone.”

  “Do as you’re told, and I will.” Her reaction to his threat revealed her weakness; never let the enemy know what you fear, what you treasure. “If you don’t, she’ll be the first to die. You’ll watch. You’ll watch them all die, and I promise you they won’t have easy deaths.”

  “You wouldn’t do that to me,” she whispered.

  “Don’t test me.”

  She paled, not an easy task for someone as fair as she was. Her delicate fingers twitched, then pushed back her fine red, sleep-mussed hair. He could see Nevada composing herself, reining in her fear for her family, perhaps because she herself recognized that her love was also her weakness.

  “Do vampires have an afterlife?” she asked, a touch of sharpness in her tone. “Do you have a soul or are you a monster who doesn’t exist beyond the skin you wear and the blood you take?”

  “I don’t know,” Sorin responded. Then he smiled, knowing his nonchalant attitude to that loaded question would speak volumes. “And I don’t care.”

  Chloe and Luca checked out of the Willard early that morning, as soon as the sun was blazing in the summer sky. Luca didn’t tell her where they were going; she got the very clear sense that he was winging it, that some sixth sense would tell him his next move.

  She wished she could just go home. If she lived in a vacuum, that would be perfect. No one could come in without an invitation, and evidently the vampires couldn’t set her house on fire or shoot her through a window because home was such a sanctuary it was damn near untouchable. But she didn’t live in a vacuum. Luca worried about her friends, neighbors, and apparently even about stray puppies. The incident with Valerie had convinced him she was vulnerable through the people she cared about, and she couldn’t deny it—like he would’ve done anything differently if it had been his friend being killed right in front of him.

  “Any idea where we’re going?” she asked, just to verify her hunch that he was making things up as he went. He didn’t immediately respond. Maybe he really didn’t know, though he didn’t strike her as a man who ever didn’t know.

  She almost wished he didn’t have anything in mind. Uncertainty would make him almost human, and he’d made it clear he wasn’t human, never had been. Looked at objectively, that kind of called her sanity into question, that after just a few days she’d placed her life in his hands. Who was she kidding? She’d been willing to put her life in his hands almost immediately.

  Maybe, maybe … there were too many maybes. She had too many questions and not enough answers. There was one question, though, that struck her as supremely important. “I hate to bring this up, but aren’t you hungry?”

  “Not yet. I’m old enough that I can go a few days without having to feed, unless I’m doing something that burns a lot of energy.” He slanted a quick look at her as he skillfully navigated the tangled D.C. traffic. He was wearing dark sunglasses to protect his eyes, but she felt his look like a touch. “What I took from you the night before last was enough.”

  She went hot at the memory, the feel of his mouth pulling at her, the rush of sensation. Glancing over, she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel. Okay, she needed to get her mind away from that, or, connected as they were, they might end up going at it the next time they were stopped at a traffic light. She cleared her throat. “You haven’t been burning a lot of energy?” she asked, then could have kicked herself, because that wasn’t exactly changing the subject.

  “Not vampire energy.”

  “That’s good. I think.” Several safer items occurred to her. “About this blood born business …”

  “I knew you wouldn’t miss that.”

  “Then why don’t you explain it? It isn’t anything bad, I could tell that from Alma’s tone. It was almost as if she were saying: ‘How could you, a prince, sully yourself with this lowly peasant.’”

  “Vampires don’t have royalty,” he said. “There are no continuous blood lines, for one thing. Power is individual, can’t be transferred, can’t be inherited.”

  “So you’re not a prince? Then what does blood born mean?”

  “It means I wasn’t made vampire, I was born vampire. It doesn’t happen very often; I know of only six other blood borns alive today, and one of them is on the Council.”

  “So … vampires can get pregnant?” The idea made her head spin.

  “Very rarely. I haven’t made a study of it, but the odds are … maybe once every two centuries.”

  “That fits my definition of rare,” she muttered.

  “Blood borns are the most powerful vampires, because we inherit from two vampires rather than having just our own inherent powers when we’re turned.”

  “You double down.”

  “That’s one way of putting it. But none of us are exactly alike, any more than humans are.”

  Different skill sets; he’d used that phrase before. One of his powers was that people didn’t remember him. She tried to imagine what that must be like, and couldn’t find anything good about it. That wasn’t a power, it was a curse, almost like not existing at all. She didn’t know why she was different, unless it was this conduit thing, but she would be grateful for the rest of her life that she had him in it, that she knew him and could touch him and hold his face in her memory.

  Luca drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, his expression turning thoughtful. “I’ve spent my life fighting battles,” he said. “That’s what I enjoy, and what I’m good at. It’s hard to find a good battle now, so to keep myself occupied I’ve been a … kind of enforcer for the Council. Keeping our existence a secret is best for everyone, but sometimes a vampire goes rogue and has to be dealt with. I have a talent for locating vampires through their energy, but I’m not the only one who can do that.”

  “Like Benedict.”

  “Yes, like Benedict, only better. I think some other tracker must have developed the power to detect conduits, otherwise how could they know who’s a conduit and who isn’t?”

  Chloe didn’t have to think about that very long. “So … no matter where I am, they’ll be able to find me.” She might as well have swallowed a GPS.

  “We’ll have to keep moving. Knowing where you are isn’t the same as knowing where you’ll be five minutes from now, and we do have the advantage of being able to move during daylight, which limits the nu
mber of vampires who can come after us.”

  He frowned. “I wish I knew which tracker can do this. There’s only a handful capable of it; they’re all much better than Benedict.”

  “And he found us.”

  “Yes. Until you can bring your Warrior over, they won’t let up.”

  So it was up to her. The only thing was, she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do. While she was having the dream, tell the Warrior to come on down?

  “Isn’t there any way I can speed things up?” she asked helplessly.

  “You have to call her by name, tell her to come. That’s all.”

  “But I don’t know her name! ‘Hey, you’ won’t work?”

  His mouth quirked. “No, it has to be her name.”

  “Indi-something. I couldn’t make it out.” She stared out the window, feeling helpless and frustrated. There had to be something she could do, some way she could work this out.

  “Now that you know what’s happening, she’ll be able to make full contact with you much faster,” he said. “Don’t fight it. When you dream, try to hold on to the dream, so it’ll play out longer.”

  “I have to be asleep to dream,” she pointed out. “Sleep has been in short supply lately.” But she was tired, so tired. If they could just find a safe place to rest, surely she’d dream. Wasn’t it a kick in the pants that just a couple of days ago she’d have given anything to escape the dreams, and now she’d give almost anything to be able to dream?

  She still didn’t know what Luca had planned, but one thing was for certain: retreat wasn’t on the agenda, which meant she had loose ends she had to tie up.

  Chloe dug her cell phone out of her purse and punched in the number for her parents. She should’ve done this before, but she’d been a bit distracted. Knowing what was coming, knowing she couldn’t, wouldn’t run, this was a call that had to be made.

  Her mother answered the phone.

  “Hi,” Chloe said, keeping her tone cheerful.

  “Oh my God. What’s wrong?”

  As dire as things were, Chloe had to smile. She almost never called early in the morning, because of the hours she worked. “I am occasionally up before noon,” she chided, and heard her mother’s sigh of relief. “Anyway, I wanted to let y’all know that I’m taking a vacation, going camping with some friends from school.”

  “Camping?” The single word was filled with meaning. Chloe had never been a fan of the great outdoors.

  “Yeah, I know. They tell me it’ll be fun. If it isn’t, I’ll leave them to the bugs and dirt and come home early. Anyway, I didn’t want you to worry if you called the house and couldn’t get me. I hear there’s spotty cell reception where we’re headed, so I’ll be out of touch for a few days.”

  “Are there any men in this group of friends?” The question was more hopeful than censuring, the word “men” slightly higher pitched than any of the others.

  “A couple,” Chloe said. If she could give her mother hope, in a time when there wasn’t much to offer, then why not?

  “Anyone in particular?” Did that question sing, or what?

  “One, in particular,” Chloe said, looking at Luca’s profile. It was easy to put him in that category. Someone special. One, in particular.

  Her mother knew better than to press for details.

  “Be careful, honey.” That was the standard warning. If her aneurysm burst while she was on a camping trip, she had no chance for survival. Then again, there was nothing either she or anyone else could do about it, and Chloe’s decision had been to simply live, so her mother wasn’t surprised.

  Chloe wanted to tell her mother to stay in the house at night, to keep Dad inside, too, to bar the doors and not let anyone in, but she didn’t. Besides, it had to be an emergency to get her dad to drive after dark. He said these days he didn’t see well after the sun set. Who would’ve thought that could turn out to be a blessing? They’d be safe, for now. There was still hope, still a chance that the rebels could be stopped before nightmare swept the world. Chloe knew she’d never look at the night the same way again; she didn’t want to do that to her parents, if it could be helped.

  After she ended the call, Chloe looked around and realized that Luca was driving north, and had been since they’d set out, which put the morning sun on her right side, pouring through the passenger window. Had he chosen north deliberately, to keep the sun away from himself as much as possible? Maybe he was strong enough to bear daylight, but he didn’t like it. It would be terrible to have to avoid the sunshine forever, she thought. For those who couldn’t stand the daylight at all, half the day would be wasted, gone. Because he’d been born vampire, Luca had never been able to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face, but did other vampires miss it?

  She supposed living forever was a pretty decent tradeoff, though honestly, who wanted to live forever all alone? Maybe Luca had friends he hadn’t talked about. Maybe he’d even been married in the past. She didn’t know how old he was, but he hadn’t gone through life in complete solitude.

  “What’s it like?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “To live forever. To see the world change again and again.”

  “Interesting, maddening, dull, fascinating, sad, hilarious. All the things life is to you, I imagine, only … more.” He glanced toward her. Traffic had thinned and he didn’t have to pay such close attention to the vehicles around them. “And no one, not even a vampire, is invincible. I can die; both my parents died, though I suppose that, to be accurate, vampires don’t die, they’re killed. The world isn’t safe, not even to an immortal.”

  “Do vampires go to, well, heaven?” She wanted to know, but once the words were out she wished she’d phrased the question differently. Having lived with the possibility of death for so long, she’d given more than a passing thought to heaven, or whatever life after death might be called. She believed. She had to believe that there was something more. “Do you believe there’s something beyond this for you?”

  “I know there are other worlds, other planes of existence.” He shrugged. “Whether or not the kindred go there when they die, I can’t say.”

  He didn’t seem bothered by this notion, didn’t seem to be annoyed that he didn’t know. Maybe, after such a long time, the idea of going to another place wasn’t a big deal.

  “The world where the warriors live, what’s it like? I think I saw it once, in a dream, but I can’t be sure if what I saw was real or just a dream.”

  “From what I’ve heard, it’s physically a lot like this one: green fields, blue skies, clear waters. The warriors live a normal life there, or as normal as life can get, between battles and wars.”

  “If this world is so ideal, then why would they ever leave?”

  “To preserve the good that’s left in your world.” He glanced at her briefly, and again she wished she could see his eyes. “To preserve you.” He abruptly changed the subject, as if talking about the warriors and life after death and worlds beyond this one was not what he wanted to do right now. “We’re going to visit an old friend of mine. He’ll give us a place to stay now, so we can get some rest.”

  Chloe wondered what would constitute an “old friend” to a vampire who’d been around for who knew how long.

  And then she made a few more phone calls: work, to give them an update on her supposed illness; Valerie; a couple of other friends who might worry about her. She wanted to warn them all, as she’d wanted to warn her mother, but she couldn’t, didn’t. All she could do was stick by Luca’s side and do what she could to stop the vampire revolution. She was amazed at how easily she lied. She was feeling pretty rotten, she told Valerie, and don’t come over because she didn’t want to give her whatever bug this was.

  Phone calls done, she settled back and closed her eyes, though sleep was far from coming. Her thoughts kept spinning, darting here and there.

  What good would she be in a fight against an army of monsters?

  What choice did she have b
ut to try?

  Going to Ahron was a last resort. Luca never knew how he’d find the old man. Hibernating, having a crazy spell, maybe, if they were lucky, enjoying a lucid moment. They needed lucid today.

  It wasn’t coincidence that Ahron lived less than an hour from D.C. The Council housed and fed him, which was a good thing since he was, in his weaker moments, incapable of hunting for himself. Even on his best days, when hunting came as easily to him as it did to Luca, Ahron couldn’t show his face in public. Hundreds of years had passed since Ahron could be mistaken for human.

  If this was what true immortality did to a man, Luca could only hope someone would take his head before it happened to him. Ahron had been alive much longer than Luca had, though how much longer no one really knew, not even Ahron.

  Ahron’s face was perpetually young, but his hair was snow white and he had a frailness about him that gave away his age. His eyes were such a pale, vivid green they glowed. His skin was like porcelain, perfect and white and fragile-looking, as if it would crack if you tapped it with a fingernail. His fangs were perpetually extended, though he only needed to feed once a month, or even less often than that.

  Even the Council members were afraid of him, which was why the elder wasn’t housed in their headquarters. If Ahron ever displayed his full strength and abilities, which was entirely possible, the Council didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. The ancient vampire, a psychic since his turning and perhaps before, saw too much. In a lucid moment, he could see anything and everything. No secret was safe from him, no treasure or pitfall could remain uncovered. It was no wonder he was mad more often than not. Luca wanted to believe that it was Ahron’s gift, not his age, that had transformed him, but who could know with certainty what had made him this way?

  Ahron lived in the basement of a deserted warehouse. In the past, the Council had tried to keep guards in the building, but none stayed very long. It took a lot to spook a vampire, but Ahron was capable of sending the strongest among them running. Not that it mattered; the old vampire didn’t really need bodyguards. While he was no longer capable of hunting aboveground, he could certainly handle any unwanted intruders. Trespassers who had the misfortune to wander onto the property at night didn’t live to tell the tale of the creature who lived in the basement.