by Tina Donahue
“Why not?”
“If I do, I won’t be able to stop myself.”
“From doing what?”
“What I have to do!” she cried. “Every night it’s the same. You have no idea. You can’t stop it, no one can. I was a fool for coming here. You can’t help me.” Lowering her hands, she studied Regina openly as she’d never done before.
It took all of Regina’s will not to press back into her chair or glance away. In the young woman’s face, she saw wrenching misery, panic and something else…something disturbing…a predatory stare. Bloodlust.
Forcing herself to remain calm, to control the situation, Regina asked, “What are you feeling now?”
The young woman frowned. “You already know. I see it on your face. I can taste your fear.”
“I’m concerned for you,” Regina said as casually as she could, not yet betraying her apprehension. “I want you to tell me what’s troubling you.”
“You want to know who Andris is. You won’t be satisfied until you hear the truth, even though I warned you.”
“About what, Ms. Smith?”
“What I am. What he is.”
Regina swallowed. “And what is that?”
She turned her face away. “I didn’t want to do this. I had hoped…” Her words faded away. Seconds passed.
Regina didn’t dare make a sound. She observed the woman’s inner turmoil, her shoulders slumping as though she’d made a decision or had lost a battle.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“About what?” Regina asked.
“You’ll understand soon enough,” she said, then continued quickly, the words rushing past her pale lips. “Andris is unlike any man I’ve ever known. He found me hours after I came here. It was wonderful.” The corners of her mouth tilted upward in a sad smile. Rapture and tears filled her eyes.
Her manner, so strained a minute before, grew wistful. “He wanted me. Never has anyone hungered for me as he did. For a few days, I knew what few have experienced—his exquisite touch, the pleasure of his mouth on my throat.”
Her hand went to it. What seemed to be shame and then indignation flickered across her face. “He promised everything, and I gave him my life, my soul. All I wanted was his love. But he lied. He intends to use me to return. My people won’t let him. I told him we could stay here. I could endure anything, even what he requires me to do, if only he loves me. I don’t care what he is. I don’t care that he’s a—”
Her words halted. She turned at the sound of hurried footfalls coming from the reception area.
Startled, Regina glanced over. The door crashed inward. Flinching, she stared at Nikoli. He glared at her patient, anger tightening his expression.
Beneath it, Regina saw his fear.
The young woman left her chair, rounding it to go to him. Arms stretched out, she cried, “Nikoli.”
He backed away from her. “Stay where you are, Sazaar.”
Sazaar? Regina studied them both as her mind tried to make sense of this. Was her patient’s first name Sazaar? Was she Nikoli’s wife? His lover? Was that why he’d spoken to Regina in the coffee shop, to find out when Sazaar would arrive? Had he suspected she had feelings for Andris? Was that why Nikoli was here, to confront her on it?
Moving in a wide arc around Sazaar, never turning his back on her, Nikoli edged toward Regina, at last looking at her.
The fathomless sorrow in his expression, his obvious remorse, confused Regina even more.
“Nikoli,” Sazaar cried again. “Please, you must forgive me. I never meant to harm you.” Her fingers clawed air, reaching for him.
Regina stared. Although she knew it was impossible, Sazaar’s nails seemed to be longer than a few minutes ago, curved and deadly like an animal’s.
Hands clutching the arms of her chair, Regina pressed into it.
Nikoli reached her side.
Sazaar cried out, speaking a language Regina had never heard before, her words impassioned, seeming to beg, then seduce. Regina saw the change on the young woman’s face, the carnal heat building within her, the feral hunger, her metamorphosis from human to something vile and unknown.
This can’t be happening.
A wave of nausea rolled through Regina. Struggling against it, she left her chair. Instantly, Sazaar positioned herself between Regina and the door, the only exit. At the same moment, Nikoli grasped Regina’s wrist, his grip tight, not injurious.
“Get behind me,” he warned her in English. “Remain there.”
She couldn’t move.
“Now,” he ordered, pulling her behind himself, his strength keeping her there. With his attention on Sazaar, he used the same language she had.
Her inflection seesawed between pleading and arguing, the words incomprehensible to Regina.
“No,” Nikoli said at last, reverting to English. “I won’t allow you to return to our side.”
Our side? Regina recalled Sazaar’s earlier words when she’d said those on her side had never cherished her. How everything had changed when she became one of them.
One of what? Regina glanced around Nikoli’s arm to Sazaar.
“Please,” the young woman said, her request filled with sadness, while her expression attempted to entice. “I can’t endure another night of this. You know what I have to do, what Andris makes me do. I’ll be good to you, Nikoli. We’ll have the life we once had.”
Grief rang in his words. “It’s too late, Sazaar. You know that.”
Her tears glittered in the office’s harsh light. Before one could fall, intense outrage replaced her misery. Throwing back her head, she opened her mouth and wailed, a thin keening sound, its pitch growing so high Regina no longer heard it…or considered it.
Transfixed, she watched the impossible—Sazaar’s canine teeth lengthening, turning into fangs. Saliva dripped from them. The corners of her mouth lifted in a savage smile.
Regina whimpered, powerless to do anything else.
Nikoli’s hand fell from her wrist.
Sazaar moved so swiftly across the space separating them, she was little more than a blur. Nikoli’s shoulders hit the wall with the force of the woman’s body slamming into his.
Regina’s mouth opened on a silent scream.
Nikoli gasped, “Regina, run!”
With his shout, his fear for her, Regina couldn’t move. Everything seemed to slow down. She gauged the distance between where she was and the door, knowing instinctively she’d never make it. Nor would Nikoli.
His hands went to Sazaar’s throat. He struggled to keep her from sinking her fangs into his neck. “Leave!” he shouted.
Sazaar clawed his hair, his face, her nails inches long now and deadly. She screamed for him to let her return.
Terrified, Regina searched for something to use as a weapon, some way to stop this insanity. Her umbrella? She nearly laughed at the thought. It was in the outer office. Too far away. Too useless against what Sazaar was.
“Go now!” Nikoli yelled.
Shaking uncontrollably, Regina backed away, her hip hitting the edge of her desk. The shade of her lamp rattled. Adrenaline made her move more than any plan. Lifting the lamp, yanking its cord from the outlet, Regina turned back to them.
If she struck Sazaar’s temple with the heavy brass base, would that stop her? Would it at least stun her? What if she swung it at her mouth, breaking her teeth, or rather her—
Regina’s thoughts stalled as Sazaar stopped her assault on Nikoli, turning to her instead, fangs bared.
She froze mid-step.
“You’re too late,” Sazaar said. She lifted her chin to the ceiling. “They’re coming.”
Regina heard what the other woman did. Whapping sounds seemed to come from everywhere.
“Invite them in,” Sazaar said.
Regina stared at the woman, then Nikoli. Face reddened, he fought to push Sazaar off himself.
With inhuman strength, she clung tight. “Invite them in,” she snapped at Regina, “or y
ou’ll force me to feed on him. I won’t be able to stop. I’ll drain him until he dies. You’ll watch. You’ll—”
“Don’t listen to her,” Nikoli panted. “Save yourself. I don’t matter.”
Regina shook her head. As horrified as she was, she couldn’t just leave him to this thing. “No.”
“You have no choice,” he growled.
Regina spoke to Sazaar. “Don’t harm him, and I’ll do whatever you want.”
“No!” Nikoli shouted.
A hissing sound escaped Sazaar’s lips. She spoke to Regina. “Invite them in now, or I’ll—”
“Screw that!” Regina shouted. “You let go of him first. If you hurt him, it’s over.”
Sazaar’s beautiful face turned ugly, then hopeless. Whatever kindness or mercy remained within her struggled to get out. “I didn’t want it to come to this,” she cried. “I wanted only to be free of the pain.”
“Get away from him,” Regina ordered. “And I’ll do whatever you want.”
“She’ll kill us both!” Nikoli shouted.
Regina refused to consider it. There had to be a way out of this. Between her and Nikoli, they might be able to fend off Sazaar. At the very least, this would buy them some time. “Now,” Regina said to the young woman.
Once more, the good still within Sazaar seemed to fight against what she’d become. Cautiously, she lowered her legs and arms, pulling herself from Nikoli’s grip, backing away. Regina went to him, gasping at the scratch marks on his face and throat.
He pleaded, “Run.”
Again, Sazaar hissed.
Regina flinched. Face lifted to the ceiling, Sazaar appeared to be listening. Regina heard the sounds too. To her, they resembled the flapping of dozens of wings. Something rattled. She stared as one of the metal ceiling vents vibrated.
Suddenly, Sazaar was behind her, having moved so swiftly she’d made no noise. The young woman’s lips brushed Regina’s ear. She spoke seductively, enticingly, “Invite them in.”
Nikoli shouted something Regina didn’t hear. Her brain went fuzzy with Sazaar’s proximity, the sexual lure of her words. Without thinking, without being able to stop herself, she mouthed, “Come in.”
The vent clattered wildly. Regina stared as a bolt turned, slowly at first, then faster. Freed of its threads, the screw fell to the hardwood floor, making small pinging noises as it bounced across it. The second bolt followed, then the third, the fourth.
The vent’s covering fell, clattering loudly on the hardwood.
With slavish wonder, Sazaar moved toward the open vent, her lips parted, her arms lifted, welcoming.
Grabbing Regina’s wrist, Nikoli pulled her toward the wall behind her desk rather than to the door. She turned from it to him.
He stared at something on the ceiling.
Regina’s scream died in her throat as dozens of bats poured through the opened vent, forming a vile black cloud above Sazaar.
“Andris,” she said with obvious love, lust.
The largest of the bats fluttered near her face, its eyes red, it leathery skin the color of night, its contours softening, elongating, transforming.
In no more time than it took a heart to complete its beat, a tall man stood in front of Sazaar, his build lean, his blond hair flowing to his broad shoulders. Dressed in solid black, he had a beautiful, almost feminine face and irises so pale the tint seemed more silver than blue.
Wearing a cruel expression, he lifted his finger and ran his nail, as long as Sazaar’s, across her cheek.
She whimpered in what sounded like pleasure and moved closer. With the grace of a cat, he edged away.
Humiliation and agony registered on her face. She begged, “Let me touch you.”
Andris ignored her. He watched the other bats with obvious satisfaction. One by one, they transformed as he had until dozens of men and women filled Regina’s office, all of them clad in dark clothing, all young, their beauty unworldly, ethereal.
“Andris,” Sazaar pleaded.
“Quiet.”
She shrank away from him, shoulders to her ears, her slender body shaking like a beaten dog.
Again, Nikoli pulled Regina nearer the back wall, where they’d surely be trapped. What was he doing? The air behind them turned icy, stinging her fingers. Goose pimples rose on her arms.
“You told the human about us,” Andris accused Sazaar, his attention settling on Regina. “You betrayed us.”
“No, never,” she cried. “I adore you.” She reached out to touch him. His frigid expression stopped her. Bringing back her hands, Sazaar murmured, “You don’t understand. I was going to feed on her tonight. Whatever I said wouldn’t have mattered. She’d become one of us.”
Bile rose to Regina’s throat. She cringed as Andris turned back to her, his focus on her neck. “You won’t feed tonight,” he said. “I will.”
Behind him, the young men and women tilted their faces to the ceiling. Their mouths hung open, showing their fangs. Chests pumping, they appeared to be wailing, though Regina heard no sound.
We’re going to die, she thought, instinct urging her to fight. How? With what?
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her chest, then died. She had the sensation of being out of her body, watching this scene as though it were happening to someone else, her mind refusing to let her understand what she’d endure…what Nikoli would face in the coming moments. These monsters attacking, feeding, draining—
Andris pounced.
Regina’s thoughts stalled. She stared as he crossed the room even more swiftly than Sazaar had.
He seemed to hang suspended above her and Nikoli, his face ruthless, inhuman.
Her mouth opened on a shout that didn’t come. With one hard shove, Nikoli pushed Regina against the seam of the wall. Her arms flailed. She gasped at the intense cold. The wall’s plaster and plywood offered a moment’s resistance, then liquefied, allowing her and Nikoli to pass through it, out of her office.
Away from the vampires.
Chapter Four
Nikoli removed his topcoat, wrapping the garment around Regina, protecting her from the cold in the void between their dimensions.
Teeth chattering, she turned in all directions, her brows arched at the silvery light, the absence of sound. Silently, strong air currents pulled at their hair and clothing but didn’t push them back with its force. Although no floor lay beneath their feet, they stood as if on solid ground.
Regina gaped, her expression saying she was trying to understand the phenomenon and what had just happened in her office. She glanced past him at the gateway into the room. Seconds before, he’d used the portable device he’d built to open a window so they could escape.
Taking the instrument from his jacket now, he draped his other arm around her shoulder.
She flinched at his touch, then lifted her face to his.
Nikoli saw her terror. “We must go,” he said.
Although he’d made no sound, he knew by her expression that she’d heard him in her mind.
She glanced at the portal—Sazaar, Andris and the others still in her office. From their side, Nikoli knew they saw nothing more than a wall, the same as Regina had this morning in her bedroom when she’d felt him watching her.
She gasped.
Several of Andris’s followers tried to claw their way through the barrier. Although Nikoli had closed it to them, the wall remained stubbornly pliant. The vampires’ hands moved through the once-solid material, stretching it like heated glass, blindly reaching for them.
With his body protecting Regina, Nikoli stepped back.
One of the vampires broke through, his fingers exposed, his lengthy nails clawing the void’s air. Within seconds, the thing’s pale hand turned red, then burst into flames, the silvery light as deadly to it as the sun would be in Regina’s world.
From behind him, she screamed, the sound heard only in his mind.
He cursed himself for her fear. He’d wanted to save her from this, to destroy Sazaar wi
thout Regina having known what his former mate had become. What he was.
The hand of a second vampire broke through, then a third, a fourth. Their mouths widened with their unholy shrieks as fire consumed their limbs. Sazaar cowered in a corner near Regina’s bookcase, her expression terrified as she watched Andris.
“Fools,” he screamed at those who’d dared break through the barrier. “You can’t breach the portal without Nikoli’s help. You,” he growled, turning to Sazaar.
Her lips moved with her silent pleas. She draped her arms over her head in a futile attempt to protect herself as Andris approached, seeming to glide across the space that separated them, again moving so quickly he was no more than a blur.
Nikoli couldn’t watch what punishment Andris meted out. Gradually, the portal closed with the fissure growing opaque, then solid.
“Come,” Nikoli said as gently as he could. Regina stared as he turned them to face the other side.
“Where?” she cried, trying to step back.
Nikoli kept her from retreat. There was nowhere for her to go except with him. Sickened at how events had turned out, he ran his thumb over the portable instrument. Regina glanced at the figures scrolling across its screen.
“My dimension,” he answered.
She stared at him as if he were insane, then ahead to the portal that opened into his laboratory. The room was deserted as Nikoli knew it would be. As he had planned before he’d crossed over tonight, fearful that he’d be forced to bring Regina to his side.
Her body shuddered. She kept trying to hold back. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
With the way clear, at least for the moment, he pulled her inside E2.
Instantly, Regina noted a change in the atmosphere. Gone was the icy cold in the area they’d just passed through. The air here was far warmer, comfortable but oddly sterile, absent of any odors. She found it difficult to breathe, and not only because of her panic. The air here had a denser quality than what she was accustomed to on—
Her thoughts paused on the word earth.
“My dimension,” Nikoli had said.
Not Romania, as he’d told her earlier in the coffee shop. Not a small isolated village. A dimension.
