Amanda Ashley - [Children of the Night 02]

by Night's Touch

  Brenna answered the door, her welcoming smile fading when she saw the stark expression on his face. “Vince, is something wrong?”

  “Where’s Cara?”

  “I don’t know. I thought she was with you.”

  “Me? No. What gave you that idea?”

  “She left me a note saying she was going to see you.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “I don’t know. I just found it a few minutes ago.”

  Vince muttered an oath. Why was it that every time he left the girl, she got into trouble?

  “She must be all right,” Brenna said. “I mean, Frank’s with her. If something was wrong, he would have called unless…”

  “Unless he couldn’t,” Vince said flatly.

  “We’ve got to find her,” Brenna said.

  “Let’s go,” Vince said. “We’ll start at the garage.”

  It took them only moments to travel across town and ascertain that Cara wasn’t there. The garage was closed; there was no sign of Di Giorgio or Cara, no sign that there had been foul play.

  “Maybe she’s gone to her house,” Brenna suggested.

  A thought took them there. “She’s here!” Brenna said. “Look, there’s Frank’s car.”

  Brenna ran up the stairs and into the house, with Vince on her heels.

  “Cara?” Brenna called. “Cara, where are you?”

  A quick search of the house turned up nothing, but she had been there. Vince was certain of it. Where could she be? Cursing softly, he went out the back door.

  He found Di Giorgio’s body wedged in a corner behind the shed and the back fence. The man’s neck was broken.

  Coming up behind Vince, Brenna murmured, “Oh, no.” A single blood-red tear slid down her cheek. “Poor Frank.” She clenched her hands at her sides. “I wish Roshan was here.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Gone to ground,” she said.

  Vince nodded. It was what he had expected. “What do you want me to do with the body?”

  Brenna shook her head. “I don’t know. We should probably report this to the police.”

  “Later,” Vince said tersely. Di Giorgio was dead. Nothing could be done for him now. “Let’s take him inside,” he said, picking up the body. “You can worry about notifying the police after we find Cara.”

  Brenna followed him into the house. While she went looking for something to cover Frank, Vince carried the body into the laundry room and laid it on the floor.

  “Where do we look now?” Brenna asked, covering Di Giorgio with a sheet.

  “Damned if I know.” Vince closed his eyes, his preternatural senses expanding, searching. Cara? Cara, dammit, darlin’, where are you?

  He was about to admit defeat when his blood stirred and he felt the latent connection between himself and Cara shimmer to life.

  Brenna laid her hand on his arm. “Vince, what is it?”

  “Wait!” He gathered his power around him and felt the connection grow stronger as every fiber of his being reached out to Cara.

  “Vince, we’re wasting time.”

  “Come on,” he said, and headed for the door.

  “Where are we going?” Brenna asked, hurrying after him.

  “I don’t know, but Cara’s there.”

  So saying, he set off down the street, not stopping until he came to a house set on a hill.

  “There,” he said. “Cara’s in there.”

  Brenna felt a chill skitter down her spine as she stared up at the house that had once belonged to Anthony Loken, the inside of which she had hoped never to see again. A quick mélange of images flashed through her mind: Anthony Loken standing over her, a demonic smile on his face as he cut a gash in her arm, his eyes glittering with madness as he and Myra watched the wound heal; the look of surprise on Myra’s face when Loken killed her; the sight of Myra’s body sprawled on the floor like a pile of dirty laundry. So much misery and death, Brenna thought, and all because Anthony Loken had thought he’d created an elixir that would allow him to live forever and he didn’t want to share it.

  “I’m going in,” Vince said.

  “And I’m coming with you.”

  With a nod, Vince moved toward the fence. He took hold of two of the iron bars, widening the space between them. He ducked inside, with Brenna on his heels. Moments later, they reached the front door.

  Brenna glanced around. There were a couple of old newspapers scattered on the front porch.

  The door was locked, of course. Vince swore impatiently. The lock was no problem, but the threshold was. He glanced over his shoulder at Brenna. “Now what?”

  “I’ve been here before,” she said. “Maybe I don’t need an invitation.”

  Then again, maybe she did, since the house had changed owners. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to try. A bit of vampire magic unlocked the door. It swung open on well-oiled hinges. “There’s something dead in there,” Vince muttered.

  Brenna nodded. “And it’s been dead for a day or so. Come on.”

  She crossed the threshold without any trouble. Whatever power it had once held had been negated; by what, she didn’t know.

  Vince followed her inside, surprised that he felt no shimmer of power as he entered the house. Inside, the stench of death was stronger.

  Vince moved through the dark house, as unerring as a cat, the scent of Cara’s blood like a road map to his vampire senses.

  The trail led to a door which led to a set of steps. Wary now, Vince moved silently down the stairway into the basement. Something unnatural stirred in the air, a leftover vestige of magical power.

  He moved deeper into the basement, a low growl rising in his throat as he rounded a collection of old furniture and boxes and came face to face with the creature, but it was Cara who held his attention. She was huddled on the cement floor at the creature’s feet, her eyes wide with fear as she stared up at it. Oblivious to anything else, it reached for Cara’s neck, its hand closing around her throat.

  With a wild cry, Vince launched himself at the husk that had been Anthony Loken and the two of them crashed to the floor.

  Brenna hurried to Cara’s side. “Are you all right?”

  Cara nodded, thinking she had never been so glad to see anyone in her whole life. Her mother untied her wrists and she groaned softly as blood rushed into her hands. Brenna made short work of the rope that bound Cara’s ankles, then effortlessly lifted Cara to her feet.

  “Vince,” Cara murmured, horrified to see him locked in a deadly embrace with the creature. “We’ve got to do something!” She took a step forward, her own safety forgotten in fear for Vince’s life. No mortal man could overpower that thing!

  Brenna grabbed her daughter’s arm. “No.”

  “Let me go!” Cara struggled to free herself. She couldn’t stand by and watch him die. She just couldn’t!

  “You will not interfere,” Brenna said, exerting her preternatural powers on her daughter for the first time. “You will do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?”

  Cara nodded, confused by her sudden lack of willpower. She wanted to go to Vince, to help him fight the creature, but she couldn’t move; she could only stand there, watching helplessly as he drove his fist into the creature’s face and body, seemingly with no effect at all.

  She screamed when the creature picked up a crowbar and brought it crashing down on Vince’s back. She sobbed when Vince fell to the floor, certain that his back had been broken, only to watch in disbelief as he rolled nimbly to his feet and launched himself at the creature again.

  Deciding that the battle had gone on long enough, Brenna pulled her lipstick from her skirt pocket and quickly drew a summoning circle on the floor. She didn’t know what kind of spell Anton had cast on the creature; all she could do was hope that her magic was stronger than his. Using an incantation she had learned as a child, she summoned the creature to the circle.

  As she spoke the words, “So say I, so mote it be,” the creature slowly turned away from Vinc
e. Moving woodenly, it stepped into the circle, then stood motionless, its empty eyes focused on Brenna.

  “What the hell,” Vince murmured.

  “I haven’t practiced my witchcraft in years,” Brenna said, smiling. “I’m glad it still works.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Vince looked at Cara, who stood there as motionless as the zombie. “What did you do to her?”

  Brenna shrugged. “It was the only way to keep her from joining the fight.” With a snap of her fingers, she released Cara from her spell.

  “Vince!” Cara ran to him, her hands lightly exploring his back. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “But he hit you with a crowbar!”

  Vince shrugged. “It was just a glancing blow. I’m fine.” He studied the creature through narrowed eyes. “What are we going to do about that?”

  “I’m going to send it back where it came from,” Brenna said, “and then we’ll get out of here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Cara shuddered as Anton stepped into view, a gun in his hand.

  “Well, now,” Anton drawled. “Isn’t this cozy?”

  Vince took a step forward, his anger rising as he came face to face with the man responsible for putting Cara’s life in danger.

  Anton leveled the gun at Cara’s head, his finger curled around the trigger. “I wouldn’t,” he warned. “Not unless you want her dead.”

  Vince froze. “So,” he asked, his voice like ice, “where do we go from here?”

  “First, you back off,” Anton said, gesturing with the gun. “And you…” He glanced at Brenna. “You release my father.”

  “He’s not your father,” Brenna said. “Send him back to wherever your mother summoned him from.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You can’t kill me,” Brenna said in a reasonable tone. “So send the creature back where it belongs and let us go.”

  Anton shook his head. “What do you take me for, a fool?”

  Vince took another step forward. “Dammit…”

  “Back off,” Anton said, cocking the pistol. “I’ll kill her, I swear I will.”

  Vince glared at Anton. He was certain he could disarm Bouchard before the bastard could fire the gun and yet, what if he was wrong? He looked at Brenna, who shook her head, silently urging him to wait.

  “You can’t win, Anton” Brenna said quietly. “No matter what you do, you’ll have to face me.”

  “And me.” Roshan DeLongpre materialized in a shimmer of silver motes beside Brenna, his face taut with barely suppressed rage. “Put the gun down, Bouchard.”

  Anton’s face paled as he stared at DeLongpre. The vampire’s face, only half-healed from the effects of the silver, was terrible to behold, but far worse was the look of retribution in the vampire’s eyes.

  Anton looked into those eyes and knew he was a dead man. He looked at the thing that had been his father and knew he would find no help there.

  “Let her go,” Roshan said.

  Anton took a step backward, and then, shouting, “I’ll have my revenge,” he pointed the gun at Cara’s back, his finger tightening around the trigger.

  Vince threw himself between Anton and Cara a heartbeat before Anton fired the gun, once, twice, three times.

  Vince felt the bullets rip through flesh, piercing his heart and lungs. The impact drove him back against the wall. Momentarily stunned, he slid to the floor.

  In the sudden silence that followed, Anton turned and bolted up the stairs.

  Roshan glanced at Brenna, then went up the stairs after Bouchard.

  “Vince! No, no! Vince!” Running toward him, Cara dropped down on her knees at his side, tears streaming down her cheeks as she stared at the dark red blood oozing from his chest. She eased his shirt over his head, her stomach roiling as she stared at the ragged holes in his flesh. Cradling his head to her breast, she rocked back and forth. He was dying and it was all her fault! But maybe he didn’t have to die.

  Cara looked up at her mother, grateful for the first time in her life that her mother wasn’t like other mothers. “Mom, please,” she begged. “Do something!”

  “I am,” Brenna said, lifting her wand. “I’m sending this creature back where it belongs.”

  Cara stared at her mother in disbelief. How could her mother think about that creature when Vince was dying, perhaps dead already?

  She looked down at him, her eyes widening with shock when she saw him looking back at her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, sitting up.

  “I’m…you were…” She glanced at his chest. The ugly holes were growing smaller, the flesh knitting together, until only smooth skin remained. “How…?” She looked up at her mother, then back at Vince. “My father was right. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  Vince nodded. “I wanted to tell you, but…”

  Pushing herself away from him, she stood, one hand braced against the wall.

  There was a whoosh of supernatural power as Brenna sent the creature back where it belonged.

  Cara glanced at the place where the creature had stood, looked at her mother, and then stared at Vince. Zombies and witches and vampires, oh my. She wondered where her father had gone, but at the moment, it didn’t seem to matter. She had to get out of here, she thought desperately, she had to go someplace where she could be alone to sort out her thoughts.

  Vince reached out to her, but she brushed his hand away. She wasn’t ready to deal with him yet, wasn’t sure she ever wanted to see him again.

  She took a step and then, feeling suddenly lightheaded, she dropped to her knees, felt herself spiraling down, down, into oblivion.

  Chapter 38

  Cara woke in her bed in her parents’ house with no memory of how she had gotten there. The sun was shining through the windows and she was alone in her room. For a moment, her mind was mercifully blank and then, like the ocean at high tide, it all came flooding back—Anton and the creature, her mother and Vince coming to the rescue, Vince getting shot…

  Vince. Her father had been right. Vince was a vampire…vampire…vampire.

  The word echoed and re-echoed in her mind. Vampire.

  She told herself it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t important. Her parents were vampires and she still loved them. She stared out the window, reliving the moments in the basement last night, recalling the sharp report of the gunshots, the acrid stink of gunpowder, the sickly sweet scent of blood. Vince’s blood. Vampire blood, oozing from the wounds in his chest. She recalled, all too vividly, the coolness of his skin, the sticky wetness of his blood on her hands, her certainty that he was dead, and then the miracle of watching his torn flesh heal right before her eyes.

  Vampire.

  Undead.

  She had always imagined she and her husband sharing intimate, candlelit dinners at home, dining out in nice restaurants on birthdays or anniversaries. Did she want to spend the rest of her life eating her meals alone?

  How would she feel in ten years or twenty, when she showed the signs of aging and he didn’t? Did she want to live with a man who would look forever young, a man who couldn’t go outside during the day?

  Did she love him enough to accept him as he really was? Did she want to spend the rest of her life with a man who wasn’t a man at all?

  Did she want to spend the rest of her life without him?

  She felt betrayed because he hadn’t been honest with her. Neither had her parents, she thought ruefully. She could understand her parents’ reluctance to tell her the truth. She could understand Vince’s, too, but the fact remained that, right or wrong, good reasons or not, the people she loved most in the world had all lied to her. It was worse with Vince, though. He had let her fall in love with him when she didn’t really know who, or what, he was.

  With a sigh, she realized that the signs had been there all the time, but she had refused to see them—arriving late at Sarah Beth’s so he wouldn’t have to explain why he didn’t eat dinn
er, never leaving the garage when the sun was up, always leaving her house before dawn. She had never seen him eat or drink anything except that glass of wine at her parents’ house and a Bloody Mariah. She frowned thoughtfully, wondering why he could drink wine and nothing else.

  Where was he now? Where was her dad? He had left the basement last night in pursuit of Anton, and she hadn’t seen him since.

  She glanced at the clock. It was time to get ready for work. For the first time, the thought held no appeal.

  She got ready anyway, thinking that going to work would help keep her mind off Vince.

  With a start, she realized she hadn’t seen or heard from Frank since the day he had driven her to her house. Had he been hurt? Was he in the hospital again?

  Ashamed for not thinking about him sooner, she hurried out to his house in the back and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Biting down on her lower lip, she turned the knob, somewhat surprised when the door opened.

  She had never been inside his house before. It was small and surprisingly neat for a man who lived alone. The furniture was sparse but of good quality. A number of photographs sat on the mantel. She moved closer for a better look. The first depicted a young couple holding a little boy. There were three other photos of the same couple. The boy was older in each picture; in the last one, it was easy to see that the boy was Frank. There were several photos of a beautiful young woman. Was it Frank’s sister, or was the woman the reason he had never married?

  Cara blinked back tears when she looked at the last two photos. One was a picture of herself sitting on a pony when she was about five or six, the other was her graduation picture.

  “Oh, Frank,” she murmured, thinking that he had devoted most of his life to protecting her. She wished she knew where he was, wished she could crawl into her father’s lap and let him make everything right again, the way he had when she was a child. So much had happened that she didn’t know about and didn’t understand. Where was Anton? Was he still a threat? Where was her father?

  Where was Vince? She told herself she didn’t care, that she never wanted to see him again, but in the far reaches of her heart and soul, she was afraid it was a lie.