I switched the stake and knife over. I can stake a vampire with my left hand, but my right is much more accurate and powerful. Now, I knew these guys couldn't see me, they had that blank look on their faces, staring vaguely in the direction of where I was, but looking right through me, but old Aussie Punk was giving them a stream of directions of where I was and how I was standing. Damn.
One vampire sprang out and I stepped quickly out of his way and watched him fly by, so Aussie Punk upped the ante and sent two in my direction. I managed to dodge out of the way by ducking down and rolling to the side, swiping out with my stake on the shin of one of them as he went passed. He howled in pain and outrage. Jeez, it was only a scratch.
Next Aussie Punk - I'm really going to have to give him another name, that one's beginning to grate - sent in six vampires at once. This was going to be more difficult. I tried to run to left and squeeze through a small gap, but the vamps closed in together, I spun around in a circle looking for a way out and felt myself well and truly alone for the first time in my life. I swallowed the fear, I was not going out without a fight. I ran directly at one of the vampires and staked him through his chest, turning to stake the next beside him and then spinning to do it again to the one after that.
I could hear the kid shouting orders, but the world was spinning around me so fast as I went on to one vampire after the other. Then reinforcements arrived, closing in in a rush, I tried to run at the nearest, raising my stake, but the vamps put their arms up at the same time, like washing lines, after a quick shout from twat features and one caught me in the throat and made me topple over backward landing hard on my tail bone and forcing an oomph from my mouth. All the vamps homed in on the sound and came at me. I scrambled to my feet, but it wasn't fast enough. A vampire had his arms around my body, crushing any air from my lungs in the next instant.
My heart rate tripled and panic exploded inside, sending spots of white dancing in my eyes. I fought not to scream, I'm not sure if I could have anyway, I couldn't get a breath in with the vice-like grip from the vamp at my back. I tried wriggling and struggling. I even tried to scratch his arms with my stake and knife, but couldn't get much purchase. I stomped on his foot, scraped my boots down his shin and tried to elbow him in the guts, but all of it was to no avail.
I suddenly felt very scared and that's when I saw Michel falter. His mini tornado blurred and stuttered, I could see him now in amongst the still swirling mass of energy and light and colour, and then, I saw Max go in for the kill.
Somehow I must have got some air in because I could suddenly hear myself yelling, “No!”
The Aussie was coming towards me, an evil grin on his face. “I'm gonna enjoy killing ya, Lucinda.” And then he started singing Waltzing Matilda but with my name instead.
From the corner of my eye I caught a flickering movement and then a man, about the same age as me, maybe slightly older, suddenly appeared. He was dressed in white linen pants with a flowing long sleeved white shirt rolled half way up his arms, showing muscular forearms underneath, his dark brown skin standing out in direct contrast to the whiteness of the material. He had short black hair and high cheekbones with a fine nose. Far from looking feminine, he had the sense of nobility, the austere look of a fine middle eastern warrior.
Where the hell had he come from?
He turned to look at me, making direct eye contact with his piercing brown eyes and then a stake appeared in his hand. In the next instant he was airborne, slicing at the vampires in the courtyard, staking one then flowing on to the next, then the next and then the next; twisting and turning, dancing in the wind, his feet hardly touching the ground. He was poetry in motion. He was as beautiful, as stunning, as the sun. He was extraordinary. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Who was this man?
It took him mere seconds to kill all the vampires around me, the one holding me stiffening as he watched his comrades simply puff out of existence and blow away in the invisible flurries created by the man. Finally he was standing behind us and I felt the vampire's grip on me weaken and then disappear altogether in a cloud of dust.
Throughout all of this Aussie had just stood there with his mouth hanging open and a look of utter incredulity on his face. A bit like me really. We all stood still looking at each other for a moment and then the man simply threw a knife at the Aussie kid. It landed with a sickening thud in his chest all the way up to the hilt. The kid stumbled and fell forward onto his knees, his hands up to the knife, clutching it, but not pulling it out, his eyes wide open in surprise and a trickle of blood slowly running from his mouth.
There was a flash in the distance, over by Michel and Max, and I looked up just in time to see Michel ripping Max's head cleanly off in one smooth twisting motion. It went flying across the rubble and landed with a splat, then burst into dust. His body followed shortly after.
The air was still and silent. Enrique and Alessandra having chased the last of Max's vampires from the courtyard out on to the streets and probably all the way to the coast. I turned to look at the man next to me, mesmerized by his smile and the shades of copper and brown in his eyes.
“It is always a pleasure to meet a fellow Dream Walker, Kiwi.”
He had a middle eastern accent I recognised immediately.
“Nero?”
“The one and only.” He bowed a graceful movement, bending in the middle with his arm across his chest.
I just looked at him. I couldn't stop. He was gorgeous. Then I heard Michel groan. Suddenly nothing mattered except getting to Michel. I took a step towards him, then remembered Nero and turned back.
“We shall meet again, Kiwi. Soon.” He nodded his head and flickered slightly and then he was gone.
Michel was on his side on the ground, panting, holding his stomach where his shirt had been torn right away. I raced over and skidded to a halt beside him, falling onto my knees in the rubble, not even registering the sharp shards of brick and rock piercing my skin through my tights. I reached out and touched his arm. “Michel?”
“Ma douce, you should not have come.” His voice was ragged, his breath laboured. Naturally he'd tell me off, couldn't just be glad to hear my voice.
I started crying, slow tears streaming down my face, falling onto the ground, onto his arm. He reached up and brushed a tear away, his touch so soft, so perfect. Then it dawned on me, he shouldn't be able to see me at all.
“Can you see me?”
“No. I can sense you. I can feel you. It's almost as though I can see you.” He sounded better, his voice stronger.
I reached down and moved his arm. The gash which had been so large moments before, was now just an ugly red mark, sealed and slowly fading.
“You're healing.”
“It would seem your proximity, even as a phantom, brings me good health.”
“So, it was just as well I came then, wasn't it.”
I didn't wait for him to answer, I just leaned down and kissed him with brutal need. He had almost died, I had watched Max go in for the kill. I couldn't bear the thought of losing him, of this world losing him. He must have felt the same, because he gripped me in a tight embrace and began devouring me with his mouth, his tongue, his voice. Words in French and English, tumbling over each other, so fast and furious I couldn't make them out, but I knew what he meant.
I drew back, only because I needed to breathe, and then felt the beginnings of the blur before reaching into nothingness. Before I left completely to return to my body, I whispered, “Come home. Come back to me.”
“Always,” was his reply.
Chapter 22
Is It Over Yet?
I came to on my bed in the familiar surroundings of my apartment. I just lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling and a particularly interesting mark just next the the light fixture. For some reason I felt a little queasy, maybe the distance I travelled when I shifted, no what had Nero called it? - Dream Walked - in my sleep had an effect. That was the furthest I had been outside my body. Previously, I'
d just made it across town and in different rooms of the same building I was resting in.
Nero. Well, that was certainly a turn up for the books. How had he known I needed help? Because that was why he was there, wasn't it? He just appeared when all my hope had fled and got straight down to it. Puzzling. And man, couldn't he move?
And Michel, all that power, that tornado of colours: blues, reds, yellows, indigos; how beautiful he had seemed as he spun and fought Max. Frightening, yet beautiful.
My body ached slightly in every joint, through every muscle, but not too bad, more like I'd just had a hard and fast workout with Rick at the Gym. Like I'd really been put through the paces. I decided, as the nausea had now subsided, that it was time to get up and see if Bruno was still doing his lobotomised sentry impersonation.
I gingerly sat up on the edge of the bed and when the world didn't tilt or begin to fade or anything, I stood and walked into the lounge. God, my body was sore, stiff and sore and tired. I hated hurting.
Bruno looked up as I entered, he'd been quietly flicking through a magazine.
“You're awake? How'd it go?”
“Michel's OK. Max is dead.”
“Yeah, I figured as much, the Master's on his way.”
OK. Vampires being in tune with their own and all that.
Suddenly, he sniffed the air and then he was immediately in front of my face, not a foot away, looking intently, running his hands over the back of my head, my neck, my arms. I tried batting him away.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing?”
“You are hurt. I can smell blood.”
He actually looked panicked, like me being injured was going to result in something bad for him. It probably would, Michel had probably left specific instructions to keep me safe, this no doubt would not have met that criteria.
He had my jacket off before I could even protest and had started lifting my top up to peer underneath, but by then I had gathered myself enough to struggle with his too strong arms.
“Leave off, Bruno! You are not stripping me!”
“I must inspect the injury. You are hurt.” He sounded a little like a demented robot with the last sentence. He stilled then and looked up at me. “Why are you hurt? You shouldn't be hurt.”
I took the opportunity his distraction at why I was hurt had caused, to feel my side. Sure enough there was definitely a tender spot, bruising and when my hand came away, a small smattering of blood, not much, but it would have been enough for Bruno to smell. I stared at my hand. How had I got hurt? In the struggle with the vampire that had held me, perhaps my stake had sliced my side, but I couldn't remember it. All I remembered was the hopelessness descending on me like a shroud.
“I...I don't know.” And then more surely, “It's nothing though OK, so you can drop the personal inspection. I get hurt like this all the time, Bruno, it's nothing.”
Although part of me was a little shocked that I had been hurt at all and not even realised it. Or that I had been hurt while Dream Walking, I hadn't known that was possible and now I was a little less enamoured with the whole thing. Still, it was pretty cool though, wasn't it?
Just then Bruno turned into a statue, that good old familiar vampire calm and swung his head towards the door in such a quick movement it blurred. His right hand hadn't moved from my t-shirt, still lifting it slightly, his other holding my arm. He was standing so close I could feel the warmth of him radiating off his chest like an electric heater. The front door to the apartment sprung open and standing on the threshold was Michel.
His clothing was covered in dust with small rips in his hip hugging black trousers, his black shirt had feared a little worse and hung in tatters here and there, showing his glowing cream skin and hints of rippling muscle. His beautiful dark hair was slightly messed, but it didn't detract from his beauty, just intensified it and his eyes blazed the most mesmerizing shades of purple; sparklingly amethyst, deeply magenta, striking violet and lush mauve.
He smelled of ozone and slightly burnt toast. I couldn't place it for a moment, and then remembered where I had smelt that combination of smells before, by the Ley Lines. He'd travelled here on the supernatural superhighway of a powerful and deadly Ley Line. He must have been in a hurry to choose that mode of transport, that was for sure.
He had such a look of longing on his face, that it stilled my breath. And then he growled, low and long, looking at where Bruno's hands were, at where he stood.
Bruno tensed even further, I hadn't thought that was possible, he had been so still and stiff already, and then in an instant he was gone. Out past Michel and into what was left of the night.
Michel's gaze hadn't softened, he still glowed like an electric light bulb, bright and clear and intense, but behind that light was a deep hunger, barely contained, straining to be unleashed. Before I even had the chance to consider inviting him in - which of course, I had no way of not doing, my longing for him at that moment just as strong as his - he simply stepped across my welcome mat and glided towards me. The door slowly closing in his wake.
The first thing I registered was his hand in my hair at the base of my head, his mouth on mine and his warmth crushing me as he pulled me to him. I didn't fight him, I simply wrapped myself around him, arms and legs and anything else I could manage, holding on for grim death. He carried me directly to my bedroom and lay me down softly on the bed. Touching me, stroking me, devouring me with his mouth, his tongue, his breath. He had my t-shirt off before I even noticed and proceeded to cover my upper body with his lips, nibbling, kissing, licking, murmuring. His movements weren't his usual languid stroking but a more fervent and hurried action, as though he was scared I would disappear on him and he needed to cover every inch of my body before I did.
I hazily realised that I had lost even more clothing, it should have concerned me that my clothes were disappearing at an alarming rate, but it didn't. I simply answered his movements with the frantic need of my own, unbuttoning what was left of his shirt and slipping it off to replace it with my kisses and touch. I couldn't get enough of him, I wanted it all. A heat had built inside me so quickly that it threatened to end everything before it had even begun. I gripped Michel's shoulders, digging my fingers in and vaguely heard someone who kind of sounded like me, whimpering and pleading to not stop, to go faster. I felt the cool air against the skin of my thighs, the softness of his naked flesh against the heat at the core of me and then just as quickly his hard length entering in a rush. I called out in surprise and then hunger, he didn't pause but proceeded to pump me with an urgency I had not ever believed could exist.
Within seconds I was airborne on a wave of pure bliss, his movements so strong, so powerful, my body shook from the invasion but clung to him with desire and need. I found myself giving direction in hurried, panting breaths; faster, harder, longer, all tumbling out and being met by his moans and whimpers and cries. Finally we crested the wave and I called out his name in a beautiful mix of colour and heat and tingling sensation that started at my centre and streamed out through every particle of my being, ringing in my ears and thundering through my pulse.
He collapsed against me, his breathing ragged and uneven, his sweat mixing with mine, his breath against my neck. For a while neither of us moved, just languished in the afterglow, then he started stroking my arms, across my stomach, hips and side. I tensed slightly when he grazed my side, where I had been hurt and he moved his attention there, running his fingers delicately across the cut and bruises, followed by his kisses, so light and tender.
“I can heal this, ma douce, but you must let me in to do so.” His voice was so husky, thick and low. It was the first time he had really talked, other than murmured words of passion and need. I relished the sound of that voice, letting it flow over me and ignite yet another fire within.
I took a deep breath and winced, realising I was actually still quite sore, amazingly having not felt a thing during our love making until now. I managed a nod and then let my shields down to let his Sangui
s Vitam in. Immediately I felt the tingle that preceded a healing, felt the rush as it covered my body taking away the aches and pain and tiredness. When he finally lifted his head to look in my eyes, I was floating on a cloud of pure joy, unable to form a coherent sentence at all.
He smiled softly, his eyes still glowing with dancing lights of blue and purple, then his faced sobered slightly. “You had me worried, ma douce, I could feel your fear, your helplessness, yet I could not help you. It crushed me inside.”
I didn't think he was being melodramatic, I could see the pain in his eyes, and I knew that if he had received my emotions when I had been Dream Walking, then he would have felt everything I did, probably even amplified.
“I didn't mean to distract you. I could have caused your death. All I knew was, when I could sense what was happening, nothing could have stopped me from being at your side. Nothing. And then, I saw you falter and I saw Max take advantage of it. The last thing I saw before Nero turned up, was Max going in for the kill.”
“Who is Nero?” His voice was even, although light, as though he was trying to show he really wasn't that interested, but I knew otherwise.
“He's a friend. Another Nosferatin who can Dream Walk.”
“Dream Walk?” Again with the even but light voice.
“He wasn't really there, he appeared like I do and saved my life.”
Michel took a sharp breath in. “I could not see him, sense him. I did not know he was there.” I don't think Michel liked that idea, that there had been an unknown phantom helping me when he could not.
Kindred (Kindred, Book 1) Page 23
