I would give Rans the night to come up with a better plan, just as I’d agreed—even though I knew with utter certainty that all of his efforts would be in vain. And in the morning? Well... I now knew exactly what I needed to do to fix all of this.
* * *
I didn’t sleep again that night. As the hours passed, I listened to Rans’ voice filtering through to me intermittently, barely audible through the walls. I had to give credit where credit was due; he obviously hadn’t been putting me off with his promises to talk to anyone who might be able to help.
As the night wore on, though, the silences grew longer and the conversations shorter. He was running out of options, running out of ideas. As I’d known they would, all his efforts had come to nothing.
Some childish impulse had me pretending to sleep when his footsteps approached along the hall. I heard him pause outside of the bedroom we’d shared the previous night, standing still and silent for a long moment as though contemplating the empty bed. Then his tread approached the closed door of the master bedroom. Another pause, and he knocked lightly on the door before opening it.
The clock on the bedside table read a quarter to five in glowing red numbers.
“Zorah, wake up.”
I made a production of blinking awake and sitting upright, still not sure why I felt the need to act like I’d been sleeping. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to update you.” His normally smooth voice sounded tired and a bit raspy from all the phone conversations. “No joy yet, but we’ll try again later in the morning. I’m... going to have a kip for a couple of hours, so I can take a fresh look at things after I’ve had some rest.”
I hesitated for a beat. “Okay.”
He remained motionless in the doorway for the space of several breaths before he stepped back, closing the door behind him with a soft click. His footsteps receded, heading for the guest bedroom before the sound faded, muted by the carpet.
I lay in Tom and Glynda’s bed, not moving, trying to decipher the small sounds coming from down the hall. I watched the clock, my mind a careful blank as the numbers changed in slow motion.
Dawn’s not a great time for vampires.
The words echoed in my memory as five o’clock rolled around... five-fifteen... five-thirty. As six a.m. approached, the house had been silent for some time. I carefully got out of bed. Dawn’s gray light was just beginning to illuminate the unfamiliar room. I snuck over to the dresser where I’d dumped my meager belongings and pulled on a pair of sneakers. Then I retrieved one of my burner phones from my bag, moving as silently as I could manage.
Phone in hand, I eased the bedroom door open an inch at a time. It hadn’t creaked when Rans had opened and closed it earlier, but I didn’t need any shrill squeaks giving me away. Tiptoeing along the hallway, I paused at the open door of the guest bedroom and looked inside. Rans was asleep on top of the duvet, his body displaying that same disconcerting stillness I’d noticed the previous morning.
I’d only intended to ensure that he wasn’t awake, but I ended up standing there for far longer than I should have, watching him. He’d understand why I had to do this, I thought. He’d know I was only acting to minimize the damage to those around me.
Wouldn’t he?
My heart was thumping against my chest as I looked at those finely sculpted features barely illuminated by the dawn light. It was that powerful thud-thud-thud against the cage of my ribs that finally unglued my feet and got me moving again. I was afraid he might be able to hear it. To sense the thrum of blood through my veins.
After a final lingering look, I crept downstairs and carefully unlocked the sliding door leading to the back yard. I winced a bit at the sound of the door sliding along the track, but I was committed at this point. I went outside into the muggy Chicago morning, the phone clutched in my hand.
The back yard was on the opposite side of the house from the guest bedroom, but I still moved as far away from the house as I could get. The fence around the yard was a bit of a hodgepodge—chain link on two sides and wooden privacy fence on the other two. I wedged myself in the corner of the privacy fence and powered up the phone.
Pulling up the contacts, I scrolled through the numbers I’d copied from Rans’ phone yesterday when I’d been waiting for him in the car, and selected the entry labeled ‘Tink.’ The cheap phone displayed a graphic of a bell ringing as the call connected. I held my breath, not sure in the least that the recipient of my early-morning call would even bother to pick up.
The line crackled, but the other end remained silent.
“Hello?” I asked, tentative. “Albigard?”
Another pause, just long enough to make me think I’d made a mistake. Then...
“Hello, demonkin.” Albigard’s voice made it sound like there were many other things he would rather be doing than speaking to me. “I had wondered if you might contact me today.”
NINE
“YOU... DID?” I ASKED. “Why? And how did you know it was me?” I’d expected to have to explain myself—how I got this number, why I was calling.
“Your father has been transported to Dhuinne. No doubt the bloodsucker has been scrambling for a way to convince you not to do something foolish to try and get him back, even though he knows there is no safe way for you to reach him.”
The truth of those words burned. “Something like that,” I muttered.
“Did you wait until he fell asleep to sneak out and speak to me?” Now the barest hint of amusement colored the Fae’s tone.
“Yes,” I told him, “I sure did. So, what can you do for me?”
“Do for you? In what capacity, demonkin?”
“Don’t play dumb. Can you get me into to Dhuinne? Can you get me to my father?”
Albigard sighed. “Yes, and very possibly. But those are not the questions you should be asking.”
I steeled myself, because I already suspected what the answer to my third question would be. So I asked a different one. “Can you get my father out of there, once they have me as a prisoner instead?”
There was a rather long pause.
“Well?” I pressed.
“That... was not precisely the question I expected.”
“That’s nice,” I snapped. “So what’s the answer?”
“The answer is... perhaps.” Albigard paused again. “If your intention is truly to give yourself over to the Fae Court, it may be possible to negotiate your father’s release in exchange.”
“Okay, great.” I stood up, pacing next to the tall wooden fence in an attempt to release some of the nervous jitters building inside me. “When can we leave? I’ll have to sneak out and call a cab or something so I can meet you, but I should leave before Rans wakes up and—”
I stumbled to a halt, my words trailing off as a burning oval appeared in the air in front of me. Albigard stepped through, and the portal collapsed in on itself, disappearing. He looked... wilder and less civilized than I remembered, clad in loose pants and a soft shirt that exposed the dark web of tattoos climbing up his collarbones to stretch toward the base of his throat. His feet were bare in the brown-tipped summer grass of the suburban back yard.
“Uh...” I began, staring.
His sharp brows drew together. “Come. I am about to make an enemy out of an ally. I would prefer to gain some tangible benefit from the move before the inevitable battle ensues.”
“How did you know where I was?” I blurted.
His tone grew dry, and his expression sour. “You drank my mead, demonkin. You also tried to drink me.”
“And that means you can track me down now, just like that?” I asked in disbelief.
He gestured around us, as if to say, well, obviously. I dragged my thoughts back to the practical. Did it really matter, given what I was about to do? Pretty soon, every Fae in existence would know exactly where I was. I had to fight a shudder at the idea, my resolve wavering for the first time.
I shoved my fear down and away. Don’t think about it. Just
act. Think of Dad.
“Fine. When can we go?” The longer I had to wait, the less I trusted myself not to have second thoughts.
Rather than answer in words, Albigard swept his hand in a circle through the air, and a new portal opened in front of us. He gestured me through, and I forced heavy feet to step forward. To step through.
I held my breath through the disorientation, unsure if I’d be stepping out into Dhuinne, or the basement cells in Albigard’s house, or what. It turned out to be none of those things. Instead, Albigard emerged to stand next to me in what must have once been a parking lot, before nature made a spirited attempt to reclaim it.
Ahead, a large, square-cornered institutional building lay in ruins. It appeared to be from the 1940s or 50s. The windows were long gone, leaving dark, gaping eyes in the structure. Rusty, acid-rain streaks ran down the exterior walls.
“What is this place?” I whispered, my voice feeling intrusive in the early morning silence.
The portal closed behind us with a wave of Albigard’s hand. “Abandoned hospital. It’s positioned on the ley line that leads to the Hill of Tara.”
A small shiver ran up the length of my spine. “Is this where my father was transported from?”
“No. That was further west of here.”
I remembered the series of dots on Derrick’s map, and wondered if the Weekly Oracle crew had EMF detection equipment hidden somewhere on the premises. Certainly, the place looked like vacation paradise for ghost hunters.
Albigard was already striding toward the front entrance of the derelict building, and I scrambled to follow him. “So,” I asked, catching up, “how does this work? Another portal, this time all the way to Ireland?”
I’d never been out of the country before, I realized with a small pang. Never even left the small, bi-state area comprised of Missouri and Illinois until Rans had jetted me to Atlantic City a few days ago...
No. Don’t think of Rans right now.
Albigard threw me a dark, side-eyed look. “Not exactly.”
He strode deeper into the decaying building, as though following an invisible trail. Then we were descending a questionable looking staircase, and—seriously, what the hell was it with Fae and basements? But the answer became clear a moment later, when we approached a patch of dusty light, the beam filtering in from a high, narrow window in the outer wall. It illuminated an area where the concrete floor had been dug up in chunks, revealing bare, dark earth beneath. I thought I could see worms and pill bugs crawling around in the damp dirt.
“A moment,” Albigard said, before closing his eyes and murmuring in that unfamiliar language he sometimes used. He gestured down the length of his own body. The loose sleep clothing he’d been wearing dissolved, replaced by soft buckskin boots that laced to the knee, fitted breeches in a shade of dark forest green, a shirt of unbleached linen in a loose weave, half-unlaced at the throat, and a buckskin vest. His loose, blond hair wove itself into intricate braids as I watched, open-mouthed.
“Okay,” I managed. “That’s... handy.”
Damn. I hadn’t been too far off with my Legolas comments when we’d first met. His presence still grated against my nerves, but it was clear that for the first time, I was seeing Albigard as he was meant to be seen—not as his kind tried to present themselves to fit in on Earth.
“Come.” He took me by the upper arm, ignoring the way I stiffened, and pulled me to stand on the exposed dirt.
I clamped my jaw against my need for him not to be touching me, knowing he didn’t mean anything untoward by the gesture. Indeed, once I was where he wanted me, he let go as if he were no more pleased by the contact than I was.
He crouched next to me, placing one palm flat on the damp earth. A faint glow spread outward from the contact until it surrounded both of us. With a few murmured words, our surroundings faded out, leaving blackness shot through with streaks of color that hurt my eyes until I closed them.
It was like stepping through one of his portals, but... worse. Or rather, it was more, somehow. I wasn’t really falling, but I felt like I should be. I desperately wanted something to hang onto, but there was nothing, and I refused to grab for Albigard’s arm like a frightened child. The sensation of blinding movement lasted way, way too long. But then I was... elsewhere... staggering in surroundings even more dimly lit than the hospital basement had been.
“Where—?” I gasped, catching one hand against a damp stone wall.
Evidently our tentative agreement hadn’t given Albigard any more patience with me than he’d had before, because he only growled, “Where do you think?” and led the way deeper into the darkened tunnel.
I tried to remember what Rans had said about the gateway between Earth and Dhuinne. It was in County Meath, on the Hill of Tara, in the Mound of... something or the other?
So, this was Ireland, then. Apparently. It was too bad I wouldn’t get a chance to see other parts of it that were less... underground. I tried to focus on my surroundings, because the alternative was to focus on how close I was to the point of no return with a plan that would most likely end in my death.
Albigard stopped in front of what appeared to be a dead end. The light filtering through from the tunnel entrance behind us barely illuminated primitive symbols marked on the wall. I saw spirals and simple line drawings, the whole thing giving me a vaguely Celtic vibe.
I swallowed against the dryness in my throat, trying hard not to think of Rans and how he would react when he woke to find me gone.
“What will the Fae do to me?” I asked. “I mean, exactly? Do you know?”
“I’ve no idea,” he said, placing a hand on the central symbol. “These days the Court can barely come to agreement on the simplest issues. No doubt the Unseelie wish you dead, while the Seelie may well prefer to study you first in hopes of determining how you came to be.”
I clenched my fists to hold in a shudder. “How do they execute people in Dhuinne?”
Albigard shrugged. “Beheading, generally. It is quick and relatively painless when performed skillfully.” He paused in whatever he was doing to glance down at me, his green eyes luminous in the low light. “I must say, your decision to pursue this course surprises me, demonkin.”
I tried to ignore the way my heart was pounding like a drum. “Yeah? It shouldn’t. I’m not a fool. Your people are going to catch up to me sooner or later. Probably sooner. This way, Rans won’t be standing in front of me when it happens, and I have a chance of helping my father. It’s only logical.”
“That is the part which surprises me,” Albigard said, still studying me like I was a bug who’d stood up on its hind legs and started doing calculus.
I glowered at him. “Could you maybe not insult me when I’m preparing to go to my doom?”
He flickered an eyebrow and returned his attention to the symbols. “My apologies.” A glow began to spread out from his hand where it pressed against the wall, similar to what had happened at the old hospital. “In case it isn’t clear,” he continued, “as soon as the gate opens, you will be my prisoner. I will take you to wherever your father is being kept, unless someone with more authority stops me. At some point, you will be taken away from me, but you have my word that I will attempt to leverage your capture to gain your father’s release.”
“And how much authority do you have, exactly?” I couldn’t keep the wariness from my tone.
Green eyes flashed at me. “That, unfortunately, is a very complicated question these days.”
I nodded, trying not to think about Rans’ words earlier.
There are areas in which I trust Albigard, and areas in which I don’t. Sending him to deal with the Court face-to-face on your behalf falls firmly into the latter category.
“What’s in this for you?” I asked.
“Renewed standing with the Court,” he said without hesitation. “Access to people who may be of use to me in the future.”
“And that’s worth making an enemy of Rans?”
I
was stalling now, and I knew it. But I’d still feel more confident going into this if I could get a better understanding of Albigard’s motives up front.
He paused for the barest of moments. “That remains to be seen. It is... a calculated risk, given current events. We are embroiled in a dynamic situation, in which unexpected developments require immediate responses.” He shot me a final look. “You are correct, though, that the Fae would have found you in fairly short order. And, from what little I have seen, you are also correct about the vampire’s likely actions in the face of your imminent capture.”
“I just want to minimize the collateral damage as much as I can,” I said quietly. “There aren’t many people in this world I give a damn about. I don’t want those people hurt because of me. Not if I can help it.”
“There is honor in that, demonkin,” Albigard said.
The glow was spreading across the entire wall now, becoming bright enough to hurt my eyes. I blinked rapidly, trying to see through the sheen of tears that had formed across my vision. What lay on the other side of the wall was... not Earth. Panic tried to rise, tried to pull my feet away from the vision of elsewhere.
I was looking at Dhuinne, the place that had spawned these beings whose presence I could barely stand. I was giving myself over to them. Placing myself in the hands of creatures like Caspian Werther. Once I stepped into that world, it was very likely that I would never see this one again.
I stumbled back a single step before I caught myself.
Stop.
Dad’s freedom.
Rans’ safety.
Have you ever played that stupid hypothetical game where you try to decide if you would sacrifice yourself for your loved ones in a crisis? Almost everyone convinces themselves that they would be a hero during an emergency... but when the rubber hits the road, most people don’t run into the burning building. They don’t jump in front of the active shooter, or dive into the freezing water to save the drowning victim.
They save themselves instead.
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 25
