My hands shook as I made my preparations. My sire most likely should have been there with me, talking me through the ordeal, but he wasn't. "You may have to hold her while I do this," I nodded at Gap who came and sat on the side of the bed. He gripped Lily's shoulders tightly. Allowing my claws to slide out about an inch, I set about opening her wrists.
Gap muttered the whole time I drank from his granddaughter, but if she survived, he would have to get used to this. I didn't drink much, allowing most of her blood to collect in the bowls placed beneath her wrists. Rowdy waited off to the side, watching intently.
I heard the girl's heart slow and somehow knew when the time was right. I licked both her wrists to stop the blood flow and heal up her wounds, then opened up my right wrist lengthwise, just as I'd done hers, pressing the wrist to her mouth. Gap helped, pulling her jaw open. Just as Wlodek said, the girl accepted my blood and began to drink. Gap's cousin Rowdy timed it; he had a watch with a second hand. He called time at four minutes exactly, even though the girl wanted to keep drinking.
"We have to keep her in a dark place," I said, licking my wrist to close the wound. Gap carried Lily as he led me down heavy, hand-hewn plank steps to a cellar beneath the main floor of the house. The cellar was small and had a dirt floor with rough, split log walls all around. At least it was swept and didn't have cobwebs. Spider bites probably wouldn't hurt me, but I still didn't want stray arachnids crawling down the back of my shirt.
A cot stood in a corner of the tiny, underground room. The mattress on it was quite narrow, with room for only one person. Lily got that. I asked for a unit of blood and one was tossed down. Gap left with the half-bag of blood I passed back to him. "Don't let any sunlight in down here," I warned him as the cellar steps creaked beneath his feet. "And I'll need more blood when night falls again." Daybreak wasn't far off; I knew that for certain. Gap left us and when daybreak came, I slumped over where I sat.
* * *
When I woke again, I pondered my dilemma as I listened to voices and footsteps overhead. At least the girl was still whole and not ash. Lily's heart and breathing had stopped the moment I'd pulled my wrist away from her lips. I had no idea what that meant or if it was natural. Gap had confiscated my cell phone before leaving me in the cellar, so I didn't even have that to try to contact anyone else. I also wanted to know how Winkler and Weldon were doing. Hunger made its presence known so I climbed up the cellar steps to the trap door, which was locked. Punching through it might have given me some satisfaction, but I held back. Gap's cellar was a dark place to hide and sleep. I knocked on the door instead to ask for my blood. A bath would have been nice as well, but I was told I'd have to wait another day or two for that. I wanted to curse but politely asked about Weldon and the others instead.
"Grumpy as bears. We've had to tranquilize 'em. We only wake 'em up enough to eat," Gap grinned at me while walking down the steps to check on his granddaughter. She didn't have the stink of decay about her and I imagined he could smell the same thing. He seemed satisfied with her appearance, allowed me to walk around the house a little and then sent me back to the cellar. No sense asking him for a book to read, I hadn't seen a single one in the entire house.
Instead, I moved over to the girl's bedside and told her stories. I told her about Franklin and Greg. About Winkler and Weldon. I even told her about some of the recent books I'd read. I catnapped a little, too, passing out when dawn came. The second night, I noticed minute signs of a change. Lily was transforming. Her lips were fuller, her skin held a tiny bit of color and her hair seemed a bit thicker. Was this how it had happened with me? Subtle changes, here and there? I'd been overweight, though, and had wakened to a much smaller size. Was the girl going to have enough mass to get through the entire thing? She'd been so thin and wasted-looking. Her continued existence was the only thing likely to keep Weldon and Winkler alive, too, so I was grateful for that much. Even if I killed everybody upstairs, the Grand Master and Winkler could still die before I found them.
Another day passed and a few more slight changes came by nightfall. I got my blood and drank; they'd passed me two unfinished units. I emptied both and went back to watching the girl. Gap came to observe as well. "She's lookin' prettier," he said. I nodded. I figured if she were completely gone, she'd have turned to ash by now, just as any vampire would. "How much longer do you think?" he asked. I turned an angry gaze on him. "This is my first turn. How should I know?" What I did know was that if he and his granddaughter escaped, I'd have to hunt both of them and kill them. Wlodek would never allow the girl to live anyway.
"All right, no need to get testy," Gap grumbled, walking up the stairs.
A fourth day passed and I woke, getting my blood and a bath, finally. Some of the werewolves wanted to watch I could tell, but Gap chased them off and I got the bathroom mostly to myself. The door was left open, however, and my guard stood right outside. Someone had also gone to the cabin we'd rented and emptied it, likely so the owners wouldn't think anything suspicious was going on. My bags, along with Winkler's and the others had all been dumped inside the log house.
Having my suitcase meant I had fresh clothes to change into and I was grateful for that. The clothing I'd worn for days smelled from spilled blood, both mine and Lily's. I wondered what the people in South Carolina were thinking, too. Weldon was scheduled to be in Summerville the day before. After I cleaned up and braided my freshly washed hair, I was sent right back down the sturdy plank steps into the cellar. Lily still seemed to be making progress, although slowly. I was settled in my usual corner, not far from her bed when the racket started. At first, I thought the werewolves upstairs were arguing, but that wasn't the case. And when one shrieked, I knew for sure that wasn't it. The trapdoor was ripped off its hinges and Merrill's voice was shouting my name.
Chapter 9
I climbed out of the cellar in a blink, finding Merrill, Russell, Radomir and Brock all there, surrounded by werewolf bodies. Every one of the werewolves was dead. Gap's head lay in a corner of the cabin's main room while his body occupied the kitchen. Both spaces were splattered in blood. Merrill didn't have a hair out of place as we stood there, surveying the bodies.
"What about Weldon and Winkler?" It took an effort to gather my wits; I was still dazed from the surprise rescue and the smell of death about me.
"We split up. The other vampires are at a cabin twenty miles away. I imagine that's over with as well. Where's the girl?" Merrill asked. I led the way to the cellar.
"She's started the change," Russell sighed, eyeing the girl. "Probably a quarter of the way there, or close enough."
"Lissa, one of us can do this if you don't want to," Merrill placed an arm around my shoulders as we stared at Lily's body. It was hitting me, then. The girl could turn completely if we didn't stop her. This would be my child, if she made the turn and was permitted to live. Wlodek would never allow that. Likely, he'd instructed Merrill to dispose of her if she hadn't turned to ash already. Merrill or one of the others was prepared to destroy Lily. If they didn't, she'd be fourteen forever. That just seemed wrong to me. All of it seemed wrong to me. I cursed her grandfather for making me do this. I cursed him again for not letting her go. For failing to understand that death is not always the enemy. I didn't realize I was doing my cursing out loud until Merrill squeezed my arm.
"Lissa, perhaps it's better if we do this."
"No." I wiped tears away. I was angry. As angry as I'd ever been, I think. And sad, too. "I'm so sorry, Lily. So very sorry. You should have gone on already." My claws were swift as they separated her head from her body. Both began to flake away. I turned and ran up the stairs.
* * *
"The girl had started the turn, Wlodek." Merrill's words caused Wlodek to cease signing his name between the L and the O.
"You think Lissa might make more females for us? That she has the blood gene to do it?" Wlodek's hand was still, poised over the documents that lay on his desk as he gazed at Merrill.
"Possibly.
That girl was dying before Lissa got to her, no doubt about that, and wasted away as well. Any male would have lost her quickly, I believe." Merrill wanted to sigh but didn't. "I don't believe the girl would have successfully turned; there wasn't enough body mass. Likely, she may have remained intact for two more days, but no longer than that. Lissa was quite upset over the whole thing. I am hopeful that Lissa has the gene, however. That would bode well for our future." The Vampire race needed more females. Were desperate for them. But Lissa had been too upset over Lily's death. Merrill hoped Wlodek wouldn't force her to attempt turns after her five-year probation was over. The ten-turn rule would be ignored if the turns were all female.
"We will keep this under advisement and make a decision when the time comes," Wlodek guessed at Merrill's thoughts. "In the interim, we will not add this to the records. It is most fortunate that your friend Griffin let the information slip about the genetics. We would likely still be searching for reasons why females couldn't complete the turn."
"He says it's extremely rare, and nearly impossible to find," Merrill muttered, wondering if he shouldn't have kept the information to himself after all. At the moment, only he and Wlodek held the information, and it would remain with them.
"I expected as much," Wlodek nodded sagely and finished signing his name.
* * *
Weldon, Winkler and Kelvin were allowed to recuperate in the Packmaster's large home located outside Charleston. Winkler was in the worst shape of all of them; the moment they'd allow him to wake a little from the tranquilizer darts they kept shooting into him, he'd start fighting. That meant he was beaten by six werewolves, every time. While werewolves heal notoriously fast, continued beatings will take their toll. Robert and Albert had been in on that kill, along with Stephan. All of the vampires went home after the remnants of the Sugar Grove Pack had either been exterminated (if they knew about Gap's little indiscretion) or sent to Buckhannon if they didn't. Buckhannon got two females out of it; a father and a mate had known. Weldon had been vicious and thorough in his decisions. You don't kidnap the Grand Master and expect to live over it.
"You bought us time," Merrill had hugged me before he left. "I knew you'd be somewhere in the area since you keep me updated on where you're going. It just took a little time to track you down. Davis from the Dallas Pack helped out; he knew where Winkler rented the cabin. The snow slowed us down a bit but we were able to find you." Wlodek had also insisted that I call and talk to him, so Merrill dialed his number and I talked. Wlodek said he understood the pain of having to kill a child of your own making. He also said that it was likely the girl didn't have enough mass to complete the turn and her final death was an inevitability. Hoping he was being honest with me instead of lying to spare my feelings, I brushed away tears and struggled to numb myself to all of it.
Weldon sorted things out with the Summerville Packmaster while he, Winkler and Kelvin rested up. It was two weeks away from Christmas and the holiday week would be spent in Dallas unless I had somewhere else to go. The call I was dreading to make after the Sugar Grove ordeal, however, was the one to Gavin. I made that call the day after we arrived in Charleston.
"Honey, it's me," I said, as soon as he answered. Gavin growled. He'd already heard something from somebody. Maybe one of the Enforcers. This was what I was afraid of—his anger. When he was coherent enough to talk, he let me know what he thought.
"You should have just ripped into them!" He shouted, making me hope he was underground somewhere so nobody would hear. I had to hold the cell away from my ear; his voice was so loud and painful.
"But honey, they would have killed the Grand Master."
"Fuck the Grand Master!" I'm sure he didn't mean that in the physical sense. "What were you going to do, Lissa? Would you care to tell me that?"
"I was hoping that if the girl turned, the wolves would clear out and I could go hunt them," I said. "I wanted to take them down as quickly as I could and hoped that I could find Weldon and the others in the process."
"They wouldn't have let you live," Gavin snorted.
"Maybe. I did the best I could, Gavin. Wlodek told me to stay with the girl, and I was hoping he and Merrill would send somebody. At least to keep the Grand Master alive."
"Fuck the Grand Master."
"You said that already," I retorted. My temper was rising, now. "This was my assignment, Gavin. The Council sent me to do this."
"The Council has no business sending a youngling female out on an errand such as this with no supervision." He started cursing in French. Or maybe it was Italian. How did I know? And he'd called me a youngling female. That burned my toast. If he'd been there with me, I'd kick him for that. And then he'd more than likely pound me. So far, being engaged to a vampire sucked most of the time.
"Gavin, if you want to punch me, then you'll have to wait until we see each other," I interrupted his cursing. That made him curse even louder. Well, he was pissed, no doubt about that. Merrill hadn't said one cross word to me the whole time he'd been here. Why couldn't Gavin do that? I wondered how long it would take him to realize I'd hung up on him in mid-rant.
"This was my fault," I told Weldon later. I'd taken a tray of food into his room so he could eat dinner. He wasn't in bed; he was on the sofa in the sitting area, watching television. "Somehow, that idiot found out about me at the Packmaster's meeting last spring and decided that his granddaughter would make a good vampire, since she was dying and he wasn't willing to let her go."
"Lissa, sit down," Weldon muted the television and patted the sofa next to him. Here came the fatherly lecture. I sat down.
"Yeah. He did it because of that," Weldon acknowledged. My eyebrows shot up. "But Winkler, Kelvin and I were caught off guard and we shouldn't have been. We were all lounging around, not expecting anything of the sort when those assholes just waltzed right in with a fake story and before you know it, they had all three of us tranquilized up to our eyeballs. They hauled us out of that cabin trussed up like sheep. You can't take all the blame for this, Lissa."
"Weldon, I don't think I ever want to see you trussed up like a sheep."
"I don't want you to see me trussed up like a sheep." He grinned at me. "Bad enough you've seen us all naked."
"Don't forget covered in blood. I'm not much for hunting but those assholes had to have testicles the size of a small planet after they saw you take down that bear."
"Saw that, huh?" Weldon put his arm around me and pulled me against his side.
"Yeah. I can mist, you know."
"Yeah. Somebody told me. Somebody also told me you did what those assholes told you just to keep the rest of us alive."
"I was prepared to do some shredding if somebody died," I said. I didn't tell him either him or Winkler. Kelvin I still didn't know about. "Did you know you were going to be thinning the herd when you started this trip?"
"Lissa, I usually do two or three confirmations a year. The most I ever had to do before was five. This time, there were more than thirty because of the attempted coup. I figured somebody would get out of line somewhere. I hope the rest will be peaceful."
"Me, too," I said.
Three days later, we were on the jet and headed for Dallas. I woke midflight; Winkler had already pulled me from the body bag and settled me into a seat on the jet. He still looked haggard after his ordeal and hadn't spoken much about it. I got the idea that he'd never been in a situation such as that, and he didn't appreciate it one bit. Kelvin had cooperated with the kidnappers completely, didn't mind talking about it and his bruises and swellings were the lightest as a result. And I still hadn't heard back from Gavin after I hung up on him. No telling how pissed he was now. I'd either be spending Christmas with Winkler or by myself.
Davis stood alongside a Winkler Security van, waiting to drive us to the house in Denton after we landed at the Dallas airport. At least the van held all the luggage. I asked to borrow a car as soon as we arrived at Winkler's home and went to do a little Christmas shopping, since I'd most
likely be in Dallas for the holiday. Winkler loaned me the Cadillac so I got to drive in style. I bought Winkler a gift card for several massages. If he got one of the girls at the massage chain, he'd probably have them talked into an after-work drink or something. Davis got a gift card to a sporting goods store. His weight lifting outfit was getting a little worn; I'd washed it the last time I was there. Whitney and Sam got something from Williams-Sonoma. I hadn’t gotten them a wedding present yet so it did double duty. Then I went shopping for Franklin, Greg, Merrill and Gavin.
I went back to the store where Winkler bought my coats. They had men's styles too, so I bought two. Merrill's was a nice camel color; Gavin's was black. They'd look good in them, I knew. I had the shop wrap them for me. Greg and Franklin got nice gloves and scarves—New York is cold in the winter or so I've heard.
I called Franklin to get a mailing address for Merrill in New York; it was a post office box so I wrote that down. Somebody might have to go to a local post office for me if there wasn't another way to get things mailed. I bought packing boxes at Walmart along with tape, Christmas cards and a felt tip pen. Gavin would have to wait for his gifts since I didn't know where he was and I certainly didn't have his mailing address. Is that weird—that I was engaged to Gavin and I didn't even know where he lived? I bought jewelry for Lena, intending to mail it to the address we used in London. She'd pick that up anyway.
Winkler said he'd get the packages mailed off for me the next day; some of his crew were dropping by anyway. The bunch that Winkler brought in put up a tree for him while they were there. I woke the following night to a fir tree smell and winking lights.
* * *
"Here's what we got on Kelvin's contact at the lab," Davis handed a folder over to Winkler. "We've been tailing the woman. The others she's met up with are recorded in that folder too, along with photographs and background checks. We figure Kelvin's counterfeit medical degree came from one of those contacts; we saw her getting documents from one of them. I think we've traced most of them back to Albuquerque State University, where Tate Briggs was a student."
Blood Passage (Blood Destiny #2) Page 16
