Deadly Encounters (Raina Kirkland Book 4)

by Diana Graves

  “Raina?” question Raphael.

  “Who is that?” my mouth said. I hadn’t said that, but my mouth did. “Was that you, fool child?” My mouth was speaking these words, but they weren’t my words! Shit!

  TAKING CONTROL

  PANIC SET IN, only I wasn’t in control of my heart or my breathing, so they appeared normal, but my mind was going nuts! I’d lost control of my body once before. A warlock had put a spell on me to make me a compliant sex slave, but I fought it. It was only a spell after all. It wasn’t real. This was very real! And I wasn’t just a compliant little toy; someone evil to the core was in charge of my faculties. Damn it! How did Alistair survive this for three years? I had no eyes to look away with as Adia made my body stand over my daughter and laugh loud and scary. Isobel woke screaming and Adia loved the sound of it. She wanted more, more screams!

  “Calm down, Raina,” said Raphael.

  “Raina’s not here, voice in my head, but you do sound familiar,” Adia said with my mouth.

  “Raina, you’re stronger than her. Take control!” Raphael shouted. “This is your body, not her’s.”

  “MINE!” Adia screamed long and loud.

  The door opened and Damon and the rest stepped through. They looked at me with anxious faces. Thomas wasn’t with them, thank the Goddess.

  “Raina?” Melvern asked. Adia laughed hard.

  “No,” Alistair said. “That’s my sister.”

  “How’s it hanging, bro?” Adia joked, “If memory serves, heavy and to the right.” And with a hop, skip and short gallop, she was standing in front of Damon, looking up at him with my face. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he didn’t fight it.

  “Adia?” he asked, and it made me feel sick to hear some lingering shred of love and concern in his voice.

  “Well, fancy meeting you here, lover.” And she rubbed my hand firmly down his chest and over his manhood. She grabbed it hard. “It’s been a while since I was the girl.” And she kissed him, worse yet, he kissed her back.

  “No!” I shouted and I forced my head to turn at a sharp angle to break the kiss.

  “Wow, it’s going to take a while to break this body in,” she laughed.

  “She is fighting you,” said Mato. “You cannot hope to win against Raina.”

  She turned to Mato, physically looking him up and down. I heard a whistle sound through my lips. Goddess, how tacky.

  “Take control,” Raphael said.

  “There it is again,” Adia whined, hitting my head with the palm of my hand. “There’s a voice in here, did you know?” she asked the boys. She noticed then my gloves and found that odd. “She was wearing gloves indoors?” She tore them off and threw them to the ground. The light from my left hand filled the room with bright white brilliance. “Ooh, shiny.”

  “Take control,” Raphael demanded. “Do it, Raina. The longer she stays in control the harder it will be to kill her.”

  “Kill me?” Adia questioned. She turned around, giving the men her back. “You’ll never be rid of me, Raina!” she shouted into the room. She looked for and found Isobel hiding under the dining table. “Sometimes you have to break them in with some drastic action.” And she moved to grab Isobel from her hiding spot. She planned on hurting her, killing her maybe. She’d see how far she felt like taking it when the moment came. She was whimsical like that.

  I dug deep and planted my feet firmly on the floor, stopping Adia in her tracks. I didn’t feel I had the strength to force her to turn around, but maybe enough for a few words. “Stop me!” I cried out. “Please!”

  “No, don’t touch her!” I heard Melvern shout. “Raina must do this on her own. Damon, stop!” But I felt Damon’s arms around me a second later.

  He was holding me down. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Are you talking to me or Raina?” Adia asked him, as she struggled against his hold on her.

  He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Raina, I’m so sorry. I wish I was a stronger man for you. I love you more than you’ll ever know. I never meant to hurt you. Forgive me for my weaknesses.” He opened his eyes and tears trailed down his cheeks.

  “Damon,” I said, though my words were weak with effort. “I love you.”

  He kissed my cheek as he held me down and a scream erupted from my mouth, but it wasn’t me. Adia screamed and fought against his arms, and then she laughed, a sick unpleasant chuckle.

  “Damon, sweetie. Don’t you love me?”

  “No,” he said harshly and without a moment’s thought.

  “Then I don’t love you either,” she said softly, and she pushed out my fire, fast and hot and deadly. I felt Damon’s body collapse around me, and fall in a heap of ash to the floor. The fire took him so fast, he hadn’t had time enough to scream. He was just—gone.

  “Damon!” I heard Alistair call out over the roar of the fire.

  Adia looked back at the men. Mato and Melvern were holding Alistair back. I heard her laugh. Fuck, I was tired of her laugh.

  “You,” I made my mouth say. “Killed him.” I forced the fire down, and I was left standing naked in his ashes, my men at the door, my baby on the floor under the table. “You’re a monster!” I could feel her struggling against me on the inside. She had years of practice in human possession, but I was a demigod. I was better at this shit than her, or so I kept telling myself. Confidence was key. I could feel no doubt, no weakness, nothing she could exploit.

  “Concentrate her, same as you did me, but concentrate her outside of yourself. You can’t kill her life energy, but you can convert it and that’s all death is,” Raphael spoke.

  “Concentrate,” I said to myself. I looked down at Damon’s ashes.

  “You can’t bring him back. His soul has gone. He’s gone.”

  I nodded, and tears fell down my face, landing in the soft black powder at my feet. I stepped out of it cautiously, keeping control over my own body. I cupped my right hand over my heart and pushed her out, forced her energy into a ball of red and gold light. Her light mingled with the bright white from my other hand as I lowered it to Damon’s ashes. I set it down and gently scooped the ashes over it, hiding it in his remains.

  “Grow,” I whispered.

  I could feel small jerking motions under my hand.

  “Raina, what are you doing?” Mato asked. I didn’t answer him, or look away from the area I’d planted Adia’s life energy. “Raina,” he began again, but stopped when the first hint of black vines grew out from the ash. First, just one curly black vine, then five, then more. Leaves grew out from the vines that were now wrapping themselves around the couch and floor, growing up the walls, like pitch ivy.

  “Raina,” Melvern said with wonder in his voice.

  Mato walked to me, taking off his trench coat and draping it over my shoulders. “Is she gone, then?” he asked me.

  “In a way,” I said.

  Melvern walked to me, then Alistair. I bent down to see Isobel still scared and hiding.

  “Isobel? The monster is gone.” I held my hands out to her, but she didn’t move. I couldn’t blame her. This body had just killed her daddy. Had she understood it wasn’t me?

  Alistair approached her and she did let him pick her up and hold her in his arms. She wrapped her tiny arms around his neck and hid her face in his hair.

  I moved to them and put my hand on her back. “Isobel, I’m sorry about your dad. I hope you know it wasn’t me. I love you, and I loved him.” I hung my head and let Mato embrace me for comfort.

  KEEPING ON

  ALISTAIR AND I put the kids in his bed for the night. It was large enough for the four of us to lay in comfortably. With the kids in the middle, Alistair and I were on either side. Isobel was cuddled in against his chest, while Thomas lay on his side, giving me his back and staring into Isobel’s black hair. My arm was draped over him, and he was holding my hand tight to his chest.

  “Why does everyone I love die?” Thomas asked me. I didn’t have a great answer for him. He
’d lost his grandma and dad, and maybe his aunt all on the same day. He’d experienced too much death for one lifetime, and he was only a boy. “I feel like I’m cursed or something,” he said with a shaky breath.

  “You’re not cursed,” I said. “Bad people do bad things, completely independent of you. You’re in no way responsible for what’s happened.”

  “I feel like a wimp.”

  “You’re growing into a strong man. Just a boy of six years, and you survived a werewolf attack,” Alistair said.

  “And now I’m a werewolf. I’m a freak and everyone I love dies,” he cried.

  “In many places in the world werewolves are considered beautiful rarities,” Alistair said, but Thomas grunted and hid his head in the pillow to cry.

  Poor guy. I wish I knew the words to say that would make him feel all better, but no words would bring back what he’d lost. I had nothing to offer him. My brain felt useless and dulled by grief. I looked to Alistair and he looked just as defeated and drained as me. Isobel’s face was against Alistair’s chest, but I knew she was crying, like Thomas. I could hear her quiet sniffling, and see the trembling in her shoulders. What could we do, but let them cry themselves to sleep in our arms?

  I wished I could have stayed in bed with the kids, but I still had Fillips to meet with. Once the kids were sound asleep, Alistair and I cleaned ourselves up and joined the party still going on in the ballroom. Still, it’s wasn’t much of a happy joy-joy occasion. A cloud of death had settled over all of Washington. I’d lost two people I loved in one day, others had lost more. The room was full as we entered together, he in his lovely blue dress shirt that brought out the brilliant blue of his eyes, and me in a borrowed short black dress with an empire cut and a sweetheart neckline. The feeling in the room was that of mourning and fear. I didn’t know most of the people standing around, and just a sampling of their thoughts let me know many of them came here for the safety of being at Bastion Fatal and not the party at all.

  I could see Seth and his son, my brother-cousin, Tristan, sitting at a table and talking with their heads close together. I wondered if Seth had told him the truth about who his parents were, but I wasn’t curious enough to insert myself into that bit of drama. I had enough of my own.

  I saw my brother, Michael, or Mick as he liked to be called nowadays. He was standing in a group with Alicia, near the ice sculpture. I did wonder how he’d been. Last I spoke with him he joined one of the newer vampire collectives in Tacoma as a legion vampire, and was sleeping with his master vampire. A good bit of drama going on there, I was sure of it. But again, I couldn’t invest time and interest in the lives of the people I loved, not right then anyway. I was only there in the hopes that Detective Fillips would show up, as she said she would, and be directed here to find me. We needed an update on the crazy shit happening outside these walls…not that there wasn’t enough crazy shit happening inside these walls.

  “We should cancel the party, and send everyone home,” said Mato as he joined us by the heated blood bowl.

  I filled a cup with the red stuff. Normally, I’d lose my appetite after such a night, but being a vampire stripped me of that luxury. The hunger was just that great.

  “No,” I said before I took a sip. “They’re safer here.” Mato nodded in agreement, but I found myself searching the crowd for one particular person. “Where’s Everett?”

  “Watching over his wife,” said Alistair.

  I closed my eyes and hung my head. I should have checked on Katie before then, and I felt bad. “I’m going to go see her,” I said.

  “Do you want company,” Alistair asked.

  I thought about it. “No, but could you bring Detective Fillips down when she comes?” I asked.

  He moved closer to me and touched my hair, holding it for a moment only to let it fall softly through his fingers. His eyes shifted to mine and softened almost to the point of tears.

  “What?” I asked him.

  He licked his lips. “How are you possible? Through all the pain and loss, you’re so full of love and drive.” I gave him a sad smirk and a heavy shrug of my shoulders. “Don’t make light of it, Raina.”

  “How do you think I get by? If I took myself too seriously, I’d have gone mad ages ago.”

  “It is odd seeing you become outwardly the very woman I saw inside you when we first met,” Mato said. “A picture of humble love and fearless loyalty.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t say that. Not about me, Mato.” After watching Damon burn alive and holding my kids as they cried themselves to sleep, I could feel the weight of everything that had transpired bearing down on me, and I hid my face behind hair and hands to hide the tears. I couldn’t fall apart, not yet. Hold it together, Raina. Don’t break down!

  “Raina,” Mato began and he placed a hand on my shoulder.

  I shrugged it off. “No, I can’t do this right now. I can’t stand here and listen to you two tell me how great I am when I just let Damon die. You can’t call me loyal and loving and brave when my sister is in a cage, my mother is in pieces, and I’m in a ballroom.”

  “Raina?” Alistair asked after me.

  I turned to leave, but stopped myself and turned back to them. “I love you, both of you. Thank you for being in my corner when I’m not. I’m sorry, I’m just, I’m failing the people I love most, and I can’t hear praise right now. I have to see my sister.”

  A DIRTY JOB

  THE STENCH OF rot was overpowering even before I opened the door to Katie’s private room, but I found only Nick standing in front of the glass wall. Katie, or what was left of her, was gorging herself in the far corner. Her lips were gone, her nose was torn, many of her fingers were dangling by small bits of meat, barely able to hold the flesh she was shoveling into her face as fast as she was able, and her stomach was bloated beyond full. It was a veiny bulbous thing. Her entire body was a red ruin.

  Before I said a word, Nick said a quiet, “Hello,” without turning around to see me.

  No need to ask how Katie was. That sad truth was evident, but what the hell. “How’s she been?” I asked as I approached him.

  Nick looked like hell. His eyes were swollen, his skin was a sickly grey, almost blue, for lack of blood and his posture was positively crooked with stress and shot nerves. “Everett said she had a seizure or some kind of fit just before dark, but it only lasted a minute or so and then she resumed her activity.”

  A seizure? I couldn’t begin to think of what that meant. I wasn’t a doctor. “What did Gabriel say about the seizure?”

  Nick shrugged, “He said he’d look into it. He seemed distant, though. Like he was preoccupied.”

  “Where’s Everett?” I asked.

  He blinked slowly and turned his eyes away from our sister and looked at me. “We’re running out of meat. I sent him to the kitchen.”

  Watching over Katie was taxing Nick terribly, yet it almost seemed wonderfully bizarre. The last time they saw each other, they were fighting; Katie with her bigoted thinking and Nick being a proud wizard, not too unlike Everett. Now, he was losing his mind taking care of her.

  “You need a break,” I said.

  “And where am I supposed to go? Back to my apartment?”

  “There’s fresh blood at the party. You could use a pint—or eight,” I said.

  He just gave me a flat stare. He shifted that stare from me to Katie. “I’m a wanted man, Raina. I can’t go to parties, not that I’m in the mood for parties right this minute.” There was an air of judgment in that last bit.

  “It’s not really a party. It’s decorated like a party, but it’s more a funeral, really. There’s been too much death for anyone to be happy.”

  “I heard about Damon,” Nick said without taking his eyes off of Katie. “When Gabriel came down to check on her, he told me. I’m sorry, Raina.”

  I didn't like the reminder. With everything that was going on, I couldn't afford to let myself feel, or maybe I didn’t want to. Maybe both were true. "You sho
uld take a break, get some blood in you. You look like shit.”

  He hung his head and nodded, but he didn’t leave. He changed the subject instead. “How are the kids doing?”

  “Their father just died,” was all I said on that matter. “Go on, go take a breather.”

  “Fine,” he said, still looking down. He turned to leave, but I had to stop him when a question came to mind.

  “Before, when the EI officers came down here this morning, how did you just disappear like that? One moment you were there, the next you were gone.”

  “Everyone has their talents,” he said. “It took me a while to find mine, but they come in handy.” He walked a few paces and was gone, just gone. Not through the door, it never opened, but he was gone alright. I couldn’t even smell him.

  A little, “Wow,” escaped my lips.

  I turned my attention to Katie, but she was a disgusting sight. I had to look away for threat of losing my dinner.

  “How do I stop this?” I asked myself. “How?”

  I approached the glass and thought hard, but the only thing I could think of was mind control. If I could control the zombie-vamps, they could be more easily killed, and thus put an end to this madness.

  “Is not the mass murder of millions madness in itself?” Raphael asked me.

  “What would you have me do?” I asked out loud.

  To that he gave me no answer, and I put my hand on the glass wall. I closed my eyes and stood there quietly. As Melvern once explained it to me, telepathy is constantly on, constantly seeking minds to hear. Every animal’s thoughts sound on a different frequency, like different stations on a radio dial, only it’s picky in that it likes to hear only the stations it’s used to. By eliminating all other minds, my mind should naturally find this new zombie-vamp frequency. And if I can read it, I can control it.

  I have to admit, I was a little scared to hear the thoughts of a zombie, but it wasn’t what I expected. I think I was expecting something along the lines of, ‘I’m HUNGRY!” but what I got was static, the sound of a dead mind. I grabbed onto that sound and started playing my own song, and that song said, “Stop.”