Sacrifice (Crave (Quality))

by Melinda Metz

  Any time a car crossed the mountain road after the last turnoff, the alarm would blare inside the lodge. It was loudest in Ernst’s sleeping chamber, since he was the only one who could be reliably awakened. The system only went on during the day. If anyone was insane enough to show up at night, well, they’d have six powerful vampires to deal with.

  Gabriel took another deep breath. Still awake. He glanced around the lodge—the doors were closed, all except his and Ernst’s. Had Ernst been standing guard at Gabriel’s door again? Or had he just awoken Gabriel because he was the next oldest, the second-in-command, the automatic choice? That’s how it would have been in previous days, before Martin.

  Before Shay.

  I’ve got to get to Shay. Gabriel felt a sudden jolt at the thought, and he was finally fully awake. Shay was locked in the vault. Ernst had gone to check the lobby, in the lab building. Everyone else was in the throes of the death sleep.

  This was his chance, maybe his last chance, to save the girl he loved.

  Gabriel took three steps toward the vault before the guilt hit him. Someone was coming. It could be nothing, just a family of vacationers lost on the mountain roads, people who would turn around in the parking lot when they saw that the road dead-ended in a closed research facility. Or it could be an attack.

  The screams of his dying family echoed through Gabriel’s mind. His brothers and sisters in Greece, slaughtered while they slept, defenseless, waking only as the blades slit their throats and the fire ignited their bedclothes.

  I can’t leave my family unprotected, Gabriel thought. The last time he had been younger and weaker. He would’ve died too, except that Ernst had woken him up and Sam had shouted for Gabriel to run. Only the three of them had survived to start their new family—Ernst, Sam, and Gabriel.

  Ernst woke both Sam and me that day, Gabriel thought. Without giving himself time to consider what he was doing, Gabriel whirled around and ran for Richard’s door. The sleeping chambers locked from inside, but there was an override. Gabriel typed the emergency code into the keypad next to Richard’s door and pulled it open so fast that the door slammed into the wall behind it, leaving a dent.

  “Richard!” he yelled. Richard and Tamara slept together, both of them unmoving. “Richard, wake up. I know you can. Richard!”

  Gabriel grabbed his brother’s shoulders and shook, using all his vampire strength. Like Ernst had done all those years ago.

  Richard lay like a dead man, unresponsive.

  “Richard, wake up. Fight the sleep,” Gabriel urged him. “The alarm has been triggered. We’re under attack. Wake up!” Desperate, he hit Richard across the face.

  “Wha . . .” Richard’s eyelids fluttered, and Gabriel felt a burst of hope.

  “Get up!” He hit his brother again. “Refuse the death sleep. I’ve done it. You can do it too. I need you to protect the family.”

  This time Richard’s eyes opened all the way, but there was no awareness in them. Gabriel hit him a third time.

  “What . . . ,” Richard murmured again, voice thick with sleep.

  “The alarm. Get up.” Gabriel hauled him to his feet. “You have to protect the family. Are you awake?”

  Richard bent over double, retching.

  “Fight it, fight the sleep. You’re old enough now, you’re strong enough. It’s an emergency,” Gabriel told him. “The family needs you.”

  “Why is the alarm ringing?” Richard asked, baffled.

  “Ernst went to check. I’m going to follow him.” Gabriel felt a stab of guilt at the lie, but he didn’t hesitate. “You stay here. Stay awake, in case you have to protect the others.”

  Richard frowned. “Ernst?”

  “He wants the family protected. That’s your job now,” Gabriel insisted. “Richard, do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Richard was swaying on his feet but staying upright. “I’m awake,” he told Gabriel. “I am. Go.”

  Gabriel ran.

  But instead of taking the corridor to the lab building as Ernst had done, he raced downstairs to the vault. The door stood open. Papers and boxes lay strewn about, a mess. But no Shay.

  Gabriel’s heart seemed to roll over in his chest. Where was she?

  Shay. . . . He smelled her scent, but that could be because she’d been here earlier. What had happened to her? Ernst said she wouldn’t make it through the day. Was she dead?

  “No. No no no no.” Gabriel turned and sprinted for the stairs. He didn’t think, he just ran. She wasn’t in the vault. She wasn’t in the lodge, or he would’ve seen her. The only place she could be was the lab building.

  Maybe Ernst didn’t wake with the alarm. Maybe he stayed awake on his own, like yesterday, Gabriel thought as he raced down the corridor connecting the buildings. Ernst must have moved her during the day.

  It was the only explanation. But had he moved her in case Gabriel fought the death sleep again? Ernst must have realized by now that Gabriel had been trying to save Shay when he caught them. Or had he moved her because she’d died?

  Gabriel didn’t slow as he approached the lab building. The thick metal door that was their first line of defense against intruders was standing open—but that made sense since Ernst had come this way to check on the alarm. It seemed odd that he hadn’t closed it behind him to protect the sleeping family, but maybe he’d been panicked.

  Can’t stop to figure it out. I’ve got to get to Shay, Gabriel thought.

  As soon as he entered the lab building, he veered right. There was a shortcut through the lab room to get to the stairs. And his vampire senses told him there was a heartbeat—a human heartbeat—downstairs.

  The smell isn’t right, his brain screamed at him as he ran through the room. Shay’s scent isn’t entirely human, but there’s an overpowering human smell.

  Gabriel ignored the thought and tore open the stairwell door, jumping to the bottom of the stairs in one leap.

  The storeroom door was still hanging open, shattered. No Shay.

  But he smelled her more strongly now, her own unique half-human scent.

  Gabriel grabbed the handle of the door to the broom closet. It was the only other place that could be secured. He yanked, discovering that someone had driven nails through the flimsy wooden door and into the door frame. Nails to keep the door closed, to prevent escape. Gabriel felt a burst of hope.

  Sure enough, Shay lay slumped inside the tiny closet, her head resting awkwardly on a mop bucket, her arms limp at her sides. She’s no threat to anyone in this condition, but Ernst still had to nail the door shut? Gabriel thought, infuriated.

  “Shay.” He knelt beside her. Her eyes were closed, her dark hair wet with sweat. He’d never seen her so pale, and he felt a rush of panic. “Shay, it’s me.”

  She didn’t respond. Not even a twitch.

  “I know you’re alive. I can hear your pulse,” he said, slipping his arms underneath her. He lifted her as gently as he could. “I don’t have time to give you my blood, not here.”

  “Gabriel . . .” Shay’s voice was barely even a whisper, but it sent a shock of relief through him.

  “Yes. I’ve got to get you out of here, somewhere safe enough to let you feed from me.” He crept up the stairs. “We have to get to the caves. We can reach them through the lodge. It’s still daylight. We can’t go out the front doors.”

  It meant going back to where Richard was, awake. It was a risk. But Gabriel had no choice. The tunnel to the caves was there, in the basement. And he’d had to rouse his brother to protect the family. He’d assumed that Shay was still in the vault, that he could rescue her and go straight to the tunnel, all without going back up to the common room. But the only thing he could do now was hope that Richard had stayed in his chamber like Gabriel told him to. Somehow he had to get Shay past his brother without being seen.

  He hesitated when he reached the top of the stairs. The overpowering human smell was here again. It was a familiar scent.

  “. . . think you’re a dream,” Shay
murmured, drawing his attention.

  “No. I’m real and I’m going to save you.” Gabriel tried to sound confident, but he had a hard time hiding his fear. She seemed to weigh nothing in his arms, yet she was scaldingly hot to the touch. Would his blood be enough? She had never been so far gone before. “Stay quiet, okay?” He used one hand to press her head against his chest.

  He pushed open the stairwell door and stepped out into the hallway. But before he could cross to the lab room, a voice yelled from the lobby: “Strong enough to blow you all into dust!”

  “And yourself with us,” Ernst bellowed back.

  But it was the first voice that had stopped Gabriel cold. He recognized the human scent now. Shay was rigid in his arms. “Martin,” she whispered. Her tone was steady and her eyes clear.

  “Yes.” Gabriel would know it anywhere. That man’s voice haunted his dreams.

  “How . . . ,” Shay began.

  “He must have tracked your cell phone,” Gabriel said. “Is that even allowed?”

  “He pays the bills,” Shay murmured. “And he’s famous and rich. If he told the phone company his stepdaughter was missing—”

  “They’d help him, whether it’s legal or not.” Gabriel groaned. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”

  The voices in the lobby raised again, Ernst and Martin yelling. Gabriel forced himself to move, heading for the lab room. If he went through there, he could reach the corridor without going into the lobby. Ernst wouldn’t see him. Every step was agony, since it meant leaving his father behind with a human—a dangerous human. But he had to save Shay.

  “No. Stop,” Shay whispered, squirming weakly in his grip.

  “I can’t.” He pressed her head tighter against his chest, willing her to stay quiet. The fight with Martin would keep Ernst distracted so he couldn’t track Gabriel. His communion with the family was weaker than it used to be. He had to get as far away as he could before he was forced to stop and let Shay feed. Going now was their only chance.

  “Wait,” Shay insisted. “Gabriel—what if my mother is with him? Can you see?”

  Gabriel froze. It hadn’t even occurred to him that her mother might have come too. It was too dangerous to check, it meant risking being caught by Ernst. But Shay would never forgive him if he let her mother be hurt.

  Gabriel slowly turned away from the lab room and inched down the hallway toward the lobby. He peered around the corner, trying to see without being seen.

  Martin stood with his back to the glass doors that led outside. He held a heavy-looking backpack in front of him like a weapon as Ernst inched toward him. There was a gurney next to Martin, and through the doors, Gabriel spotted a van in the parking lot, its back open. Even through the glass, the sunlight dazzled his eyes and he had to look away.

  Ernst was having the same problem, Gabriel could tell. There was a long awning over the glass doors to block any direct sunlight from reaching inside the lobby. But it was still daytime, and any light at all was almost unbearable. They weren’t supposed to be awake, and even an overcast day or the most indirect sunlight could hurt them. Where Gabriel stood, far back from the entrance, he felt safe. No sun could touch him. But if Ernst took even one more step toward Martin—toward the natural light coming through the doors—he risked burning.

  “You can’t imagine the magnitude of your mistake,” Ernst said. “One man against a family of vampires. Your research didn’t teach you enough about our strength.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw the door that led from the conference room to the lobby inch open. Richard. Gabriel heard the hiss as Richard sucked in a breath, taking in Ernst standing so close to a human.

  “I watched the other one long enough to know that vampires are like blocks of stone during daylight hours.” Martin’s voice was detached, like always, but Gabriel detected an undercurrent of fear. “You’re no vampire.”

  “Then come closer,” Ernst replied. “Find out for yourself.”

  He knows he can’t attack Martin, Gabriel realized. Not unless Martin leaves the light.

  Gabriel’s eyes darted back to Richard. He was poised in the doorway, muscles tensed.

  “Or maybe I’ll just set off the C4 and destroy the whole place,” Martin said. “Fire kills everything, even vampires. My research told me that much.”

  Shay let out a whimper. Gabriel was the only one who noticed. The room almost crackled with the tension between Martin and Ernst. Richard took a step forward. What was he going to do? He couldn’t get any closer to Martin than Ernst could. If Richard got near enough to attack, it would mean stepping into the sunlight.

  “You went to all this trouble.” Ernst’s voice took on a mocking tone. “I thought you were a scientist. Don’t tell me you’re really a vampire hunter! Out to kill us all?”

  Martin pulled a detonator out of his jacket pocket and pushed a button. “Now it’s armed. Still doubt me?” He swung the backpack back and forth by one strap, preparing to throw it. “I’ll be outside before it goes off. But it’s a nice, sunny day out there, so there’s nowhere to run for you.”

  Gabriel felt Shay begin to tremble, her body sending tremors into his own. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the scene in the lobby. Martin was right. If he detonated the C4, none of the family would escape. They’d all burn, just like his family in Greece.

  But he couldn’t help them. He had Shay to think about.

  “So you’re willing to leave here without a captive vampire?” Ernst asked, as if he hadn’t even noticed the detonator. “Funny, I thought you still needed a laboratory specimen. Someone to torture the way you tortured my son.”

  Martin’s eyes widened. Richard took another step forward.

  “That’s right. You’re dealing with an old one now.” Ernst chuckled. “You locked my son in your lab; I’ve locked your daughter in my cellar. I think she’s dead, though.”

  Gabriel turned away abruptly. “Your mother isn’t here,” he whispered into Shay’s ear. “I don’t see her, and I don’t smell her.” He moved slowly so as not to attract attention from Ernst, Martin, or Richard. If he was going to save Shay, he had to leave now.

  “But—,” Shay murmured.

  “We’re leaving.” Gabriel’s veins felt filled with lava. His father had used Shay’s death as a way to taunt Martin. They were the same, both angry old men intent on vengeance. Let them fight. Neither of them could afford for the C4 to go off. Martin wanted a specimen too badly, and Ernst had the family to protect.

  Gabriel would get Shay to the caves and he would save her life. As for Richard, all Gabriel could do was pray that he stayed where he was.

  Quickly, Gabriel made his way through the lab room. There would be only one brief moment of exposure to the lobby, and then he would be through the metal door and in the corridor. He took a deep breath, gathered Shay closer in his arms, and stepped out of the lab room.

  Almost there . . .

  A sharp sound came from the lobby—a gasp, or a cry. Gabriel didn’t have time to process which. He whirled around. Ernst had spotted him. He stared at Gabriel, and a mix of anger, betrayal, and fear pulsed through the communion from him.

  Martin raised his arm, lifting something . . .

  “Ernst!” Gabriel yelled. But it was too late.

  A dart flew through the air, shot like a bullet from the gun in Martin’s hand. Ernst reached up to knock it aside, his vampire reflexes as fast as lightning. The dart pierced his hand.

  Ernst dropped like a rock.

  Hawthorn, Gabriel thought. The same paralyzing substance that Martin had used to capture him.

  “No!” Richard took off across the lobby. Martin ran for Ernst, grabbing his feet to pull him toward the door.

  Gabriel stood rooted in place, too torn to even move.

  Martin saw Richard coming, and he hurled the backpack of C4 at him. Richard caught it instinctively, and Martin sprinted back toward the entrance, leaving Ernst behind. He fumbled with the detonator as he
tried to escape from the attacking vampire.

  “Richard, it’s a bomb!” Gabriel yelled. “Get rid of it! Throw it!”

  But it was too late. Martin pushed the button as he raced through the glass doors.

  Richard didn’t even hesitate. Clutching the backpack, he put on a burst of speed, vampire speed, and ran outside.

  Into the sunlight.

  When the bomb went off, Richard was a thousand yards away from the lab. There was a ravine with a river at its bottom, and he hurled the backpack into it, his body turning to ash even as his arm arced through the air. He crumbled into nothingness as Gabriel watched in horror.

  Rocks flew and trees exploded into flame, and from the ravine came the sound, loud in Gabriel’s vampire ears.

  Martin’s van sped from the scene, the back doors still open. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere in sight when the firefighters arrived.

  “Gabriel . . .” Shay’s voice was barely a whisper.

  Dragging his eyes away from his brother, Gabriel gently put Shay on the floor. “Right back,” he promised her. He ran to his father.

  Ernst’s body was paralyzed. Gabriel remembered the feeling all too well. The hawthorn rendered him unable to move, to speak, to defend himself. But he’d been able to watch, and think, and feel.

  Against his will, his eyes went to Ernst’s. His father was conscious in there, and his gaze burned with fury and grief. He had seen Richard run outside. He knew that Gabriel had stood by and let his brother sacrifice himself. He knew that Gabriel had woken Richard in the first place so that he could go and get Shay. He’d seen them, and he knew what it meant, and he knew what it had cost: Richard’s life.

  “I won’t let you die,” Gabriel told his father. He jerked the hawthorn dart out of Ernst’s hand, then scooped him up and put him on Martin’s gurney. There was some kind of thick black cloth—or maybe a body bag—on the gurney, presumably to protect Martin’s vampire prize from the sun. He’d come prepared.

  I’ll kill him, Gabriel promised himself. If I ever see Martin again, I’ll kill him.