Between a Vamp and a Hard Place

by Jessica Sims

  He gave me a dismissive look. “Come, Lindsey. We must waste no time.” His expression was serious. Gone was the laughing flirt from before, or even the awed man filled with wonder at a popcorn machine. This was the hunter, the warlord. “Follow me.”

  I wanted to protest. To take my time to get to know the city. To prep myself and my vampire kit. Instead, I followed him wordlessly, letting him drag me through the train station.

  It was as if I was with a different person. Rand tore through the streets like a man possessed. It was all I could do to keep up with him, my feet racing as we sped down one street after another, leaping over medians and bushes, darting through alleyways and around parked bikes. “Wait,” I called after him. “Let’s take a taxi, all right?” When he ignored me, I tried again. “We’ll get there even faster with a taxi.”

  That made him pause and he nodded, a wild look in his eyes as he scanned the streets. “Get this ‘taxi,’ then, and let us be on our way.”

  I watched Rand warily as I flagged down a taxi, then tried to explain to the driver in my limited Italian that we needed to go where Rand pointed.

  “You race, yes?” the taxi cab driver asked me. “TV race?”

  Were we on a game show? “Sure, whatever,” I said. Whatever got the man moving. I handed him a wad of euros and gestured for Rand to get in next to me. I shut his door and buckled him in, and for the next ten minutes, we pointed at streets and tried to follow Rand’s directions . . .

  . . . Which led us to a graveyard. The Protestant Cemetery of Rome.

  “No, no, no,” I whispered under my breath. I did not want to go into a damn graveyard looking for vampires. I gazed at the thick stone wall, the decorative crenellations at least ten feet above my head. There was a massive door, and guards patrolled the way in front.

  “Is closed,” our cab driver pointed out. “You wait until morning?”

  I looked over at Rand, but he was already pushing at the door of the cab, trying to figure a way out. I reached over and popped the handle on his door. “We’ll get out here.” I paid the driver a few more euros, thanked him, and hopped out after Rand.

  “So what are we doing?” I asked as he strolled toward the wall. One of the guards was standing a few feet away, but he hadn’t noticed us yet. When he did, I suspected things would get ugly.

  Rand touched the door. “I sense both of them in there.” He pushed on the door, and it made a creaking, groaning noise.

  “Stop,” I said, swatting his hands. “We can’t go in there right now.” A plaque on the wall said visiting hours were 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. At this rate, we’d never get inside, considering that vampires couldn’t come out in sunlight.

  He ignored me. Instead, he took a few steps back and studied the wall. It was shorter the farther away one got from the door, and he began to pace down the length of it. “We’re getting in.”

  “What about the guard?”

  As if attuned to my voice, the guard began jogging toward us. “Scuzi,” he called out.

  Faster than I could blink, Rand had the man by his neck. He sank his fangs deep, and as I stared in shock, he began to drink. The guard’s eyes went wide and then he shuddered, his body stiffening in an expression of what could only be pure ecstasy.

  “Rand!” I hissed. “You can’t do that!” Oh my God. I glanced around the empty street to see if anyone had noticed. We were totally going to jail now. What was I going to do if I ended up in an Italian jail? What would Rand do once daylight hit?

  But the vampire ignored me. He continued to drink from the twitching guard, who wasn’t fighting him in the slightest. A moment later, the guard’s eyes rolled back and he fell limply to the ground.

  Rand released him, setting him down gently. Then he licked red-tinged lips and looked up at me. “Shall we go?”

  I just stared at him. “I cannot believe you did that! Did you just kill that man?”

  He gave a small shake of his head. “Only drank enough to make him lose consciousness. Come. We haven’t much time before he awakens and wonders what happened.” He strode toward the doors again and gave them another shake.

  “Oh jeez,” I murmured to myself. I stepped over the guard, then, as Rand tugged at the door again, I leaned down and unclipped the key ring from the guard’s belt. “Here, let me do it. If I’m going to be an accomplice, I suppose I’d better go all in.” I pushed past Rand and began to try keys. A moment later, I had the door unlocked and I swung it open, gesturing Rand should lead.

  His hand clasped mine and he tugged me forward. As he did, I noticed his fingers weren’t ice-cold underneath mine. “How come your skin is warm?”

  “Borrowed heat,” he said softly, scanning the crowded-looking cemetery. “The guard’s blood will warm me for a short time.”

  “Oh.” I should have found that disturbing, but instead, I couldn’t help but cling to his hand. There was something comforting about the feel of his warm skin under mine. It made him a little less distant, a little more real.

  “Come,” Rand said. “This way.” He led me forward into the night.

  The cemetery wasn’t wired for lighting. Actually, I was surprised the cemetery was still open for business . . . or whatever it was that cemeteries did. Trees and foliage seemed to cover almost every inch of ground, and gravestones were dotted and clustered in claustrophobic fashion. As graveyards went, this one was creepier than most, simply because of the sheer amount of people squeezed into the small space.

  Rand unerringly headed toward the back of the place, tugging on my hand. There was no point in asking where we were going—it was obvious the moment my eyes adjusted to the moonlight. A large marble mausoleum sat at the far end of the property, looming over the tumble of graves. Once we made it there, Rand stopped.

  He looked at me. “I can go no further. You must go on from here.”

  “Me?” My voice squeaked. “What?”

  “They are beyond this door,” Rand said. He placed a hand on the iron door of the mausoleum, and immediately I heard the soft sizzle of something burning. He pulled away and showed me his palm, dark and blistered from a burn. “Hallowed ground.”

  I groaned. “You’re kidding, right? Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I do not lie.” His face was unusually pale, his expression somber. “Please, Lindsey. Do this for me.”

  I think that was the first time I’d ever heard Rand say “please.” It threw me off. I stared at the doorway. Bad enough that I was in a graveyard with a vampire after dark. Now he wanted me to go raid a mausoleum by myself? “Can I ask a stupid question? If you can’t get through that door because it’s hallowed, how can they possibly—”

  “I know,” he said, and his voice was rough with emotion. “But I must know for certain. All I can tell you is that with the bond I share with the Dragon’s Claws, I can sense their blood. And I sense the blood of both William and Frederic behind that door. I cannot leave this place until I find out their fate for certain.”

  Oh. I stared at him.

  This wasn’t a “meet up with buddies” mission any longer. This was a search for answers. Rand suspected they were dead, and he needed to know the truth. And I was the only one who could give him that truth. My stomach knotted unhappily, but I nodded and turned to the door. “All right. I’ll check it out.”

  I closed my eyes and put my hand on the door-knob, hoping vainly for a brief moment that it would be locked. Unfortunately, it swung open, and I had no choice but to step inside.

  The interior of the mausoleum was small in comparison to the exterior. The interior was a small room with a bench along one wall, facing an alcove of decorative urns that had name plaques under each one. Oh no. I turned to look at Rand through the open door, hating that this was happening. “Do you still feel them here?”

  “Tell me what you see.” His pale face was expressionless. “Is it them?”

  I bent and read each plaque, my fingers brushing over the engraved lettering. The two oldest names were t
he ones I sought. Frederic Arnault, died January 8, 1763. William de Beauchamp, died January 8, 1763. There were no other Frederics or Williams. I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Rand. It looks like they died two hundred fifty years ago. Same day.” I looked at the small urns. “These must be their ashes.”

  “That . . .” His voice cracked, and then he cleared his throat. “That must be why they felt so faint. It doesn’t feel the same as when they were alive. More like an echo or a memory.” His fists clenched and he turned away, his head bent.

  I bit my lip, hurting for him. I’d started tonight hoping we’d find a vampire, and now we had two dead ones. There was no happy friend to drop Rand off with. No pleasant reunion for him. His friends were gone. Long gone. And he was the only one that remained. Tears pricked my eyes. “Maybe . . . maybe there’s a secret door or something, like where I found you. Maybe they’re just hiding.”

  “They’re dead,” he said harshly. “I knew it, but did not want to believe.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Come. We shall leave this place.”

  “But what about your other friend?” I struggled to think of the name. “Guy? Do you feel him? You said you could feel all three of them, right?”

  “I feel Guy,” he said as I stepped out of the mausoleum and shut the door quietly behind me. “I feel him, and I do not know what to think. He is faint, but his echo moves back and forth, unlike the others. They were static. So he is alive. I get pulses of emotion from him.”

  “That’s good, right? We can find him and you can go visit him?”

  Rand’s hollow gaze turned to me. “And if he was the one that staked me? The one that destroyed William and Frederic? What then?”

  My eyes widened. “Do you think he did that? I thought you were like brothers.”

  “I thought so, too, but yet here I am.” He spread his arms. “Betrayed. And William and Frederic were destroyed together. The same year. The same date. If it was Guy that did it, should I run to him and embrace him like a brother?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I am going to find out who did this,” Rand said, voice even. He took my hand in his and escorted me down the steps of the mausoleum. “We are going to find Guy, and we are going to get answers. And if it was Guy that betrayed Frederic and William and trapped me, then I will pull his heart from his chest and feed it to him.” His hand fell to my shoulder, possessive. “And I will need your help to do so, Lindsey. You must remain my blood vassal and my guide in this quest.”

  Yep. Somehow, I’d known he was going to say that. “Rand, I don’t know,” I stammered. “I need to get back and help Gemma with the apartment. There’s so much work to be done, and all of our finances are riding on things—”

  “But you must help me, Lindsey.” Rand brought my hand to his lips—still warm from his stolen blood—and kissed the back of it. “For you are the only person I have left.”

  Aw, jeez. How could I say no to that?

  Eight

  Okay,” I said, trying to keep calm. “We’ll get this figured out. First things first. We’ll get a hotel, call Gemma, regroup, and decide what our next steps are to get you settled.” I pulled out my cell phone. “This is just a setback. We—”

  I swallowed the rest of my words because he grabbed my hand and began to drag me through the graveyard. “Um, Rand?” I stumbled behind him, narrowly missing tripping over a headstone. “Where are we going?”

  “We are going to find weapons. I will not go around this city without protection.”

  “We can’t carry weapons!”

  His hand tightened on mine, and his fingers felt less warm than before. “My friends are dead,” he said, voice bitter and clipped with anger. “I have enemies all around. I refuse to walk about without protection. I do not care what the laws of this time and place are. I have never cared what the laws are. A sword makes the law.”

  “But—”

  He turned so quickly that I nearly ran into him. His hand went to my chin, and he forced me to look into his eyes. “Lindsey,” he said, the tone of his voice strange. I noticed an odd flare of color in his eyes, like a flash of green in the deep blue.

  And then I couldn’t look away. It was like I was hypnotized. I stared, entranced.

  “Find me a weapons broker,” he said, voice low and thrumming. “That is what I wish right now. Weapons.”

  Even though my mind knew it was a bad idea, I was helpless to disobey. “We should look for a rare dealer,” I told him. “Let me check my phone.”

  “Do so quickly,” he said, that strange flash in his eyes.

  I fumbled with my phone, typing as fast as I could. Sure enough, there was a rare arms dealer a few streets over. I mapped the instructions, and then we set off, Rand dragging me along by my hand. As we exited the cemetery, Rand released my hand. “Wait here.”

  I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.

  He stepped forward and crouched near the fallen guard. As I watched, he leaned over and tapped the man’s cheek. The guard blinked awake, then his gaze was caught by Rand’s.

  Rand said something in Italian. The guard nodded, that blank look on his face. He got up, straightened his uniform, and began to walk away in the other direction, as if we weren’t there. I watched his unnatural movement and set his keys down on the pavement, just in case he decided to come looking for them.

  Something about this was very wrong, but it was like one level of my brain had shut off. I wanted to protest all of this but couldn’t. It was like I was a puppet and Rand was pulling the strings.

  “Let us go,” Rand said to me, taking my hand again. “I wish to get weapons before it gets too late in the evening.”

  “What did you say to him?” I asked as Rand began to drag me behind him again.

  “I told him to forget what he’d seen here.” Rand surged forward, hauling me over a median.

  I sputtered at that. He could just tell someone to forget and they would? This was mind control. I suspected he was using mind control on me, too, because the more I tried to pry my hand from his and protest where we were going, the more my mind shut down and refused to obey. So I trotted behind Rand like a good little soldier as I called out directions to the weapons shop, all the while mentally seething that I couldn’t disobey. He was using mind control on me? That utter shit. How dare he? Did he think I didn’t have feelings? That I wouldn’t help him?

  Because that ship sure had sailed the moment he’d decided to take the decision away from me.

  We arrived at the weapons shop to see the store closed. It was one of those buildings where the living quarters were nestled over the shop, and I guessed someone was home even if the lights were out. Still, I didn’t want to force our way in if we didn’t have to. “We should come back later,” I told Rand. “They’re not open right now. You can tell me what you want, and I can come buy it in the morning.”

  “No,” Rand said. “We are purchasing our things now. I refuse to leave without weapons.”

  “But it’s not like you’re defenseless,” I protested, even as he let go of my hand. The man had superstrength and fangs and hypnotic eyes. Of course he wasn’t defenseless. It was all in his mind, this obsession with finding a stinking sword or two. “Just let it go for now, Rand.”

  “No. Wait here.”

  A command? Ugh. I crossed my arms and glared at him as he studied the front door to the place. It was a small mom-and-pop shop with a heavy glass door nestled between two big windows that displayed old war collectables. In one window was an old cavalry saber and a helmet from World War II. I watched as Rand tested the doorknob and shook the door.

  He turned to me, clearly impatient. “Can you open this?”

  “It’s locked.”

  “How can we get in?”

  That felt compulsively like a command, and I found myself answering, “You’d have to break in.”

  “Then that is what we shall do.” He pulled back one fist, and before I could protest, he slammed it through the glass
.

  It shattered into a thousand pieces and I flinched backward.

  He looked at me expectantly.

  “What?” I hissed at him, crouching so no one would see me.

  “Invite me in.” He gestured at the door.

  “Invite you in? Why?” I stared at him like he was crazy. Maybe he was. “It’s not my house! Why would I invite you in?”

  This time, Rand rolled his eyes at me. “Vampires cannot enter a dwelling unless they are invited.”

  “Oh, great. Just frickin’ great,” I muttered. “Any other vampire trivia you want to impart to me while we’re at it?”

  “We cannot cross running water,” he said, ticking off each fact on a finger. “We cannot walk on hallowed ground. We cannot see the daylight. Stakes—”

  “Okay, okay,” I told him. “We don’t have all night.” I reached through the broken glass and fumbled on the other side of the door, then flipped the lock. I opened the door, stepped through, and gave him a mocking bow. “Please come in, Lord Vampire.”

  If Rand noticed my snark, he didn’t show it. Or he just didn’t care. He pushed past me, entering the shop and looking around as if he’d owned the place. I stared around us in horror, waiting for the local police to suddenly swarm, but no one showed up. Jesus. This was like a nightmare come to life. I watched as Rand took a few more steps in, and I took another step backward, exiting out into the street. No way was I following him. No freaking way.

  “Come, Lindsey,” Rand said.

  Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it. I stepped inside.

  The store was small, full of war memorabilia from different time periods. Most of it didn’t catch my eye, but I watched as Rand headed unerringly toward a glass case in the back full of swords.

  “Please, can we just go?” I asked, shivering in fear. He might be able to get out of a breaking and entering plea with his vampire powers, but I wouldn’t be able to. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  “I will get my weapons and then we will be on our way,” Rand said, ignoring me. He pressed his hands to the glass case and eyed the contents. “How do you suppose we get into this? Should I just smash it?”