Key to Redemption

by Talia Gryphon

  Perrin could see that he wasn’t going to bully her into changing her mind and turned to Aleksei for help. “Can you do nothing with her when she is like this?”

  The Vampire Lord’s eyes were backlit with his pride in Gillian, and more than a little fear. He didn’t like it one damn bit either, but short of literally holding Gillian pinned until the sun fully rose to make him retreat, there was little he could do and Jenna would die.

  “I am afraid not. She is quite hardheaded when she makes up her mind.”

  The light ghost of a smile was there on Perrin’s mouth and his color was quickly coming back. He looked beautiful, unyielding and stern as he squeezed her shoulders lightly. “He is proud of you, as am I, though I do not have the right to be, for you are not mine to be proud of.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’m scared too, but Jenna’s more important than my being afraid. I know better than all of you what kind of a mind we’re dealing with. And I do appreciate you saying that you’re proud of me too, Perrin. I do value your opinion.”

  “But not my wishes.”

  “I don’t need a caretaker, Perrin. Just support me in this, stay here and don’t get in my way while I try to get my friend back. All I need you to do is just pray to whatever gods you believe in that we don’t fuck this up and that we manage to get Jenna back alive.”

  Impulsively, she reached up to hug him around the neck. Perrin was so jaded in some ways but so completely innocent in others. She was so going to have to process all this with him. Helmut and Daed were probably both asleep in the castle like sensible people, not out seducing Gargoyles, having orgies, finding butchered corpses and chasing Jack the Ripper around Romanian villages at three o’clock in the morning to rescue a fellow soldier.

  His arms went around her, holding her small body tightly sheltered by his taller frame, and he admonished her quietly. “What I ought to do is spank you until you promise that you will not do this insane thing, but I will pray for your safety and support you instead.”

  Despite herself, she smiled. He was so earnest and sincere, and he meant well; she just couldn’t get mad at him. He’d come so far just being out here; actually asserting himself for fear of her safety was a major development. Hell, he wasn’t even wearing his gloves.

  “Is that how you handle all your female students, maestro, bullying them until they comply?” She pulled back, grinning, trying to interject a little levity into a very grim moment.

  “Only the ones who need looking after as badly as you do.” The gray green eyes were kind as he tucked an errant lock of blond hair behind her ear, but he returned her smile.

  “And once again, she proves me right,” Trocar, whose Elven ears had picked up every word, said to whoever was listening.

  “Do not start with her, Elf. We need to find my lover.” Tanis glowered at him.

  Gillian moved to hug Aleksei tightly. “I will be fine and I will be back.”

  “You had better be. I am a Vampire Lord now. If anything happens to you, I will raise you from the dead for the sole purpose of allowing Perrin to carry out his threat.”

  He caught her to him, nearly cracking her ribs and lifting her so she was eye level with him. “I mean it, bellissima. You stay very safe. Perrin is right about one thing,” he said firmly.

  “What? The spanking thing? Sure! We can try it some night when we’re getting a little kinky.”

  “It is meant to be a disciplinary action or an attention getter, Gillian, not foreplay.” Aleksei glared at her, but the effect was lost owing to his looking a bit cross-eyed as she leaned in and kissed his nose.

  “Ooooh, baby, don’t tease me.” Gill writhed against him, grinning like a fiend.

  Aleksei developed a very wicked smirk suddenly. He cupped her butt in his large hands then squeezed playfully, kissing her as deeply as he could with Gillian squirming and giggling in his embrace.

  “You need looking after, cara mia.”

  “Rawr,” she growled at him with an absolutely sinful gleam in her eyes.

  He set her down, swatting her tush affectionately as she moved off toward Tanis and Trocar. She flipped her hair, then sashayed away for his viewing pleasure, waving backward as if she hadn’t a care in the world, leveling off into a jog as Pavel loped down the hill in Wolf form to run at her side.

  The Wolves had recovered enough for Cezar to hear Aleksei’s call, and he’d sent Pavel. There was a pattering of another set of feet and Kimber ran to join them, several objects of wanton destruction in her hands.

  After they disappeared into the darkness down the road, Aleksei abruptly remembered that Gillian was wearing only his shirt, her boots, had no undergarments at all; had only one gun, one clip of ammunition, and now was about to go headlong into an encounter with one of the most vicious, sexually sadistic serial killers ever known.

  A serial killer who had stalked her from London, through France, to his very doorstep. A madman from whom she had managed to escape twice, and who worked for Lord Dracula. Evidently she’d left out a few details when she recounted her adventures to him. They needed to have a discussion about her conveniently leaving out important segments of her stories.

  Feeling dizzy all of a sudden, he wondered if there had ever been an incident of a Vampire actually fainting or having a coronary arrest. He steadied himself against a tree, hand over his heart, trying to calm his nerves. She was going to kill him by giving him a heart attack or aging him centuries before his time. That was probably her plan all along, little blond vixen.

  Perrin was immediately there, patting his back. “Are you all right?”

  “Do me one favor, Perrin.”

  “Anything, you have but to ask.”

  “When she gets back in one piece . . .”

  “What?”

  “Remind me to spank her for both of us. Even a Vampire’s heart cannot take this level of emotional strain.”

  “Vampire? You. Are. A. Vampire?”

  “Perrin, we need to talk.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE village wasn’t that far but Gillian soon slowed and stood panting in the road. She was grateful for Aleksei’s little bit of loving levity back there. It had helped get her head in order, calmed her anger, and made her realize how thankful she was that Aleksei was really, really trying to understand her and her many-faceted life.

  He wasn’t happy with her at the moment, but he was letting it go until a more convenient time. That was growth for a chauvinistic, old-school Vampire. She was inexplicably proud of him. How proud, she’d think about later.

  Right now, she and her little group were headed down the darkened road toward Sacele since Saucy Jack had a proclivity for more civilized settings. He’d dumped the last body by Castle Rachlav to get their attention since they hadn’t discovered the others. Well, now he had their attention. Pavel bumped her with his shoulder to move her along and she took a halfhearted swipe at him.

  “Fuck off, Rin Tin Tin, I’m tired and I need to have some strength left in a very short time.”

  He subsided but sat next to her, giving her the Wolf version of a “what a wimp” look. Apparently Werewolves had better postcoital recovery skills than Vampires or Humans.

  Kimber jogged up, panting as hard as Gillian was, and rested bent over, hands on her knees.

  “What now, Kemo Sabe?”

  “Other than we may need to consider quitting smoking, hell if I know.” Gillian wheezed, twisting her back to pop a kink out but remembering her knickerless condition and not raising her arms up too high lest she moon Trocar.

  “Tanis, I know you can hear me. Get back here for a second. You too, Trocar, and see if you can spot any of the Fey. Some of them went this way.”

  In seconds, Tanis was with them and Trocar was melting out of the trees with three Fey warriors and Aisling Crosswind at his heels. Gillian looked them all over objectively. She and Kimber were going to be the weak links tonight; she could tell that already.

  First of all, they were both exhausted
from their marathon orgy earlier, Gillian even more so since she’d had entrée de Gargoyle à la Fey as well. Second, their body clocks were still not fully adjusted to Vampire Standard Time, which the rest of the bunch lived with quite nicely. They needed to think or Jenna wasn’t going to be the only other sacrifice tonight.

  “Okay, look,” Gillian started, getting into debriefing mode for the second time that night, “Jack the Ripper as a rule is an opportunistic killer. What that means is that he doesn’t ordinarily target a victim, then follow her around until he nails her. He goes out hunting with the intent to kill. First woman he stumbles on in the right place at the right time is toast. It’s that simple.”

  “Then why has he come here and taken Jenna?” Tanis asked.

  “He’s not switching his method, by any means, if that’s what you’re asking. I think this situation is so different because it’s about a personal beef with both you and me, to be honest, Tanis. When he had Kimber and me in the basement of Oscar’s estate house, we sort of didn’t hit it off too well, if you know what I mean.” Gillian winced, remembering some of her verbal sparring with the sexual sadist in question.

  “I’m also reasonably sure he’s pissed off that we sprung you from that basement right under his nose.”

  “How is it he did not come for you two then when we were all engaged in . . . our earlier activities?” That was from Trocar.

  “I have no idea. Well, that’s not quite right, I think I do but I need to talk to you, Finian and Perrin first to be sure.”

  Kimber lightly touched her arm. “Go on, give us your theory anyway.”

  “Okay, I think that Perrin’s metaphysical music magic created a field of some sort. A geographically specific field folding outward from him as the epicenter, which both contained us while it was going on but also kept out anything that didn’t have at least warm and friendly feelings at the time it snapped on. Sort of like a Fairy ring . . . or a rudimentary casting circle, but a helluva lot more powerful. Jack, of course, would have had murder and retribution on his mind so he would have been unable to approach the yard or us while it was active. I can’t explain it better than that.”

  Trocar was nodding and spoke briefly in rapid-fire Elvish with Aisling and one of the Fey, a tall fellow with dark green hair and amber brown eyes. After a moment, Trocar switched to English.

  “Actually, you are probably more correct than you realize. Perrin’s lineage may be from a musical or fertility line of the Sidhe. Also a Gargoyle is a highly sexualized being with its own glamour abilities to seduce in a predatory manner.

  “I believe he is unaware of this power, at least the level of it anyway, does not know how to control it and must be taught to do so if any of us are to have a moment’s rest while he is still here.”

  Trocar bitching about the possibility of too much sex. That was a new one. This wasn’t the time for jokes so Gillian refrained though Kimber covered her derisive snort with a cough.

  Gillian elbowed her and asked the Dark Elf, “Can you, Dalton and maybe Finian get a small nullifying field up around the guesthouse then? Something to keep his magic contained so it doesn’t spill over?”

  “Yes, I believe we can. I will let you know when we all return alive,” Trocar said unequivocally.

  “Swell. All right. Jack has the problem with me or Tanis. He knows we’ve found the body, he left it near the castle on purpose since we didn’t pick up on the two prior kills. I would stake my career on it. He knows we, or at least Tanis and I, will come after him to rescue Jenna.

  “Remember, a serial killer like Jack is highly intelligent and can anticipate the next move of his presumed adversary with uncanny accuracy. It’s a game to him, that’s what makes him dangerous. If we fuck up this rescue, Jenna will die. If we don’t attempt a rescue, Jenna will die. He doesn’t care who gets killed as long as he wins. What I suggest is that we all spread out, circle the wagons if you will, and move in on him on all sides from the perimeter of the village.”

  “What will you do, piccola sorella?” Tanis came to her, apprehension and deep worry in his eyes.

  “I am going to walk my happy ass straight down his throat. He is not going to come out willingly to fight. He knows I’m not so brainless as to face him without backup, so I’m going to have to provoke him to show himself. Hopefully I will piss him off so badly that he won’t be the cold efficient killer, but will be so angry that he will make the proverbial ‘fatal mistake.’ If nothing else, it will give me a better chance of living long enough for one of you guys to take him out.”

  “I was afraid you would say that,” Trocar muttered.

  “I don’t want to be filleted, Trocar. Jack is a blitz attack killer. He pounces, cuts, feeds, kills, then is gone again, melting into the scenery. I need a chance to confront him directly and find out where Jenna is before it’s too late.”

  “What does he look like?” Aisling asked suddenly.

  Kimber, Trocar and Gillian exchanged looks. They had no freaking idea how to describe him. Two of them had been under the influence of Pixie venom when they’d met Jack. The venom, which was a mild hallucinogenic, had warped their perspective badly. Trocar had been dead sober, face to face with him, and realized he had no idea what the hell he looked like either.

  Gillian was fresh out of surgery the second time she’d met him; weak and disoriented the third time. The fact that Jack was like a chameleon—he could blur his image and features so that anyone facing him wouldn’t have been able to establish the difference between him and King Kong in a lineup—was one of the reasons he’d gone undetected for so long.

  “Didn’t he have dark hair?” Gillian was trying desperately to remember what the serial killer Vampire looked like.

  Kimber stared at her. “I think so. Wasn’t he sort of short?” Gill had to think about that. “I’m not sure. Hell, I can’t remember exactly what his eyes looked like and we were almost nose to nose more than once. Rusty brown, I think.”

  “I seem to remember looking down at him,” Trocar added, “and I believe you are correct about his eyes.”

  Tanis was fidgeting. “Can you or can you not identify him?”

  “No,” the three of them chorused.

  “This is not comforting, Gillian,” Tanis snapped.

  “We won’t need to. He’ll come to us.” She gestured to herself and Kimber.

  “How the hell did I get volunteered for this shit?” Kimber looked irritated.

  “Because he knows you and me. Well, he knows Tanis too, for that matter, but Tanis kind of sucks as bait for a lady killer. Jack’s only seen Trocar once, but I don’t think he’s after Elf tonight,” Gillian said matter-of-factly.

  “Yeah, but I’m betting that Tanis didn’t get under his sensitive macho serial killer skin the way you did by calling him a ‘sick twist.’ ” Kimber snickered while Gill made shushing noises at her.

  “Please tell me you did not just say that Gillian deliberately antagonized Jack the Ripper on their first meeting.” Trocar stood with fists on hips, eyes flashing a myriad of colors.

  “Well . . .” Gillian shrugged helplessly.

  Trocar threw both hands in the air, turning away in exasperation. “No wonder he stalked you across Europe. Did it not occur to you that he might come after you? That he would hunt you down and extract retribution? He is an ego-maniacal killer and you have escaped him no less than three times. I did not understand fully why he was so determined before. Now I do.”

  “For crissakes, Trocar, you don’t really think that I would deliberately provoke a nut like that while I’m lying there trussed up like a chicken and stoned on Pixie venom, do you? I didn’t know who the hell he was until it was too late!” she retorted defensively, resenting her former Lieutenant’s rant.

  “That I believe,” Trocar said, but his voice was still chilly.

  “Hey, it’s not like it was her fault. We were both hammered on Pixie juice and him with that little ability to blur and shift his image,” Kimber counter
ed. “I’m with you, boss. Let’s do this.”

  Gillian beamed at her friend’s defense, then immediately became serious. “All right, let’s knock it off. We don’t need to argue right now. Jenna’s running out of time. Kimmy, you’re going to have to lose the flamethrower and crossbow. We need weapons that aren’t readily visible. He’s not stupid—he knows we’ll be armed—but there’s no sense in advertising it.”

  “And then what?” Kimber asked.

  “Then we are going to do it just like we said to do it before.”

  “I am terrified by what I believe you are about to say,” Trocar said, supremely vexed.

  “We are going to stroll right into town and demand the attention of Jack the Ripper.”

  Pavel snarled at her. Tanis and Trocar exchanged glances with each other and the Fey. Aisling stepped forward unexpectedly. “I will also be bait.”

  “Like hell you will,” Trocar stated. “It is enough that these two have lost their minds. Your brother will dismember me if anything happens to you.”

  “No, he will not. He knows I have my own mind. I was a warrior in my clan long before you strapped on your first stiletto, Grael,” Aisling argued and began to remove her outer cloak and visible weapons.

  Soon she stood in her leggings, boots and cowl top, with only a six-inch knife secreted in her boot for a weapon. The Fey gathered her belongings and hid them off the side of the road.

  “Lock and load, people,” Gillian instructed. Calling to two of the Sidhe warriors, she pointed toward Aisling and Kimber. “You two pick a woman and shadow her. Stay close in case Jack goes for one of them instead of me.”

  To the third she said, “I would like you to circle around at the edge of the village perimeter and see if you happen to hear or see any of your friends. Then have them fan out and move in slowly.”

  “Tanis, you have an advantage he doesn’t know about. He has no idea you can now shape-shift since his boss’s nullification devices are down. Mist around and see if you can get a sense of where Jenna is then contact Aleksei. He’ll contact me and I’ll get to her, I promise.” Her eyes were serious on the tall Vampire’s face, trying to convey reassurance.