Her mind focused on the heartbeats.
Alex! No!
A voice shouted inside her head, accompanied by the image of a man lying on a bloodstained floor with her straddling him, feeding. Uniformed police and paramedics pulled at her, trying to pry her away from the man’s—from Varik’s—throat.
Stop! Varik shouted in her mind.
The two heartbeats overlapped, merged, and became one.
Pain seared her neck. She released him, screaming and clawing at the scar on her neck. The humans surrounding her parted, and she stumbled a few feet away before collapsing to the floor. She gasped for air and choked on the blood in her mouth. Gagging and coughing, she rolled onto her side and curled into the fetal position. Tremors racked her body. Muscles tightened and unclenched in painful spasms.
“Easy, easy.” Varik’s voice was both a whisper in her mind and a deafening shout in her ears. His hands on her bare shoulders were like cold fire, soothing and burning simultaneously. “She needs a blanket.”
There was movement to her left as she struggled to escape his grip. She felt him pull her back against his body, against his warmth. She shivered. “What …”
“Shh, it’s okay,” he said in that echoed whispering shout. “You’re okay.”
The weight and warmth of a blanket surrounded her, invited her to explore its depths. Her eyes closed, and the thought of sleep flitted through her mind in a voice that mingled Varik’s with her own. The sensation of rising into the air pulled her eyes open.
Varik was holding her as he climbed into the back of an ambulance. He laid her down on the stretcher and sat on the small bench beside her.
She seemed to be in two places at once. She looked at him but saw herself lying on the stretcher in her mind. “Varik,” she croaked and grabbed his blood-soaked shirt. “What … happened?”
The doors slammed shut, and a paramedic jammed a needle into her arm. The siren wailed to life, and the ambulance lurched forward.
Alex felt a warm rush in her veins as the IV began flowing. Her eyelids drooped, and she fought to keep them open.
Varik’s voice whispered in her mind. Blood-bond.
She tried to scream, to lash out, but couldn’t move. Her eyes closed, and she once again drifted in darkness.
He whistled as he opened the gates to Jefferson High School’s football field. He unfolded a map and used the truck’s headlights to illuminate it. The positioning of the body had to be precise. If it wasn’t, all his work would be meaningless. He’d carefully chosen the sites. All were equidistant to a central point, to the focus of his rage.
He stuffed the map in his coverall’s pocket and climbed into the truck. He drove onto the field to the selected spot by the bleachers and parked. Using an old gas station receipt, he spat out the gum he’d been chewing since he left the Holy Word Church’s prayer meeting and dropped the sticky wad into the truck’s ashtray.
The Holy Word’s weekly meetings offered him cover as well as served as cover for the Human Separatist Movement’s strategy-planning sessions. While he wasn’t an HSM member, he agreed with much of their beliefs, even if he did prefer the philosophy championed by two other anti-vamp groups, Blood Brothers and Kill All Bloodsuckers—“Kill ’em all and let Satan sort ’em out.” While HSM preached separation between humans and vamps, Blood Brothers and KABS both wanted to see vampires eradicated, believing them to be an affront to nature and to God’s design. Violent confrontations between the groups and vamps were common, especially in larger cities.
He continued to whistle while he opened the camper’s hatch and dropped the truck’s tailgate. Lugging a vampire’s corpse up to the top row was going to be a bitch, but he didn’t have to report for his shift until ten. He had time.
“Hammer … stake,” he muttered, checking the contents of a backpack he’d thrown in with the corpse. It was too risky to leave the stakes in the vamps’ chests when he transported them. One wrong bump and the corpse could shift and dislodge the stake or, worse, break it. If a stake broke, revealing its secret too soon, he and Claire couldn’t be reunited. Timing was the key. Sabian had to know he’d done what she couldn’t—avenge Claire. Sabian had to be present, and she had to believe he’d taken away that which she held most dear. Her world had to be shattered, the same as his had been. Only then could he and Claire finally be together again.
Of course, trusting that the Enforcer bitch would figure things out in time was a gamble, but a necessary one. She’d made him suffer for far too long. He wanted to return the favor.
He shouldered the backpack, grasped one end of the tarp secured around the corpse, and tugged.
The body inched forward, and he tugged again. He repeated the process until it reached a tipping point and gravity took over, dumping the bundle onto the field. The impact loosened some of the bindings, revealing a pallid foot.
He scrambled into the back of the truck to rummage for the coil of rope he always kept handy. If he looped the rope under the corpse’s arms and made a rough harness, lifting the body up the bleacher stairs would be much easier.
As he squatted in the truck’s bed, he glanced out one of the camper’s side windows and froze.
A flashlight bobbed along the fence lining the opposite side of the field. The light paused and cut in his direction, and he heard the squeak of a gate’s rusty hinges.
He mouthed silent curses. Sweat beaded on his upper lip and dripped down his temples. He’d watched the school’s nighttime security guard’s routine for weeks, learning the pattern. The guard wasn’t scheduled to check the athletic area until much later.
“Hey!” the guard called from midfield. “No one’s allowed back here after hours.”
He tensed in the darkness provided by the camper shell. The voice was female, a different guard from the one he’d watched. Mouthing more curses, he searched the truck’s bed for a weapon, something he could use to incapacitate the guard while he finished his work. His hand closed over the straight end of a crowbar. His heart pounding, he hunkered down in the truck, covering himself using the wall of the camper on the same side from which the guard approached.
The guard’s flashlight swept the ground, illuminating the foot peeking out from the tarp.
He heard the guard curse and quicken her pace. He tightened his grip on the crowbar and tried to ignore the sudden pressure in his bladder. His mouth felt dry even though he was perspiring, and he wished he hadn’t gotten rid of his gum.
The guard’s silhouette came into view. She stopped by the open tailgate, focused on the tarp lying on the ground at her feet. “Oh, my gaa—”
He waylaid her with the crowbar, striking her in the side of the head, and she never finished her exclamation. He jumped from the truck as she crumpled and accepted more blows onto her helpless form.
———
Alex blindly ran through a never-ending labyrinth. A single pinpoint of light danced on an invisible wind before her, drawing her along the path, guiding her steps. Guttural whispers and screams echoed in the dark. Shadows, barely discernible in the gloom, pressed close. Hands reached for her. She forged ahead, focused on reaching the light, spurred by her father’s voice.
“Alexandra, hurry.”
“Daddy!” She stumbled when phantom hands pushed her, and she lost sight of the light. Turning in a circle, she shouted into the darkness. “Where are you?”
“Come to me, Alexandra. Come to the light.”
Faces floated before her, screaming their eternal torment. The smell and taste of blood overwhelmed her, suffocated her, and made her gag. The hands pushed her, and she stumbled.
Panic threatened to consume her. She had to find the light, to escape. “Leave me alone!” Her words wrapped around her, cutting her flesh. The phantoms laughed, and she screamed.
“Alexandra!”
“Daddy!”
The phantoms hesitated, seemed to back away and melt into the void once more. The light returned to her right, brighter and closer than before
. She ran toward it, and as it grew larger, shades of gray and blue filtered into the darkness.
A shadowy form appeared in the light, and her father called to her. “They’re coming! Run!”
Alex lunged forward. Screams engulfed her and pierced her heart, making it falter. Fingers dug into her arms and legs. Claws raked her sides, tearing her flesh. Phantom bodies slammed into her, pulled her hair, trying to drag her back from the light. She reached for her father’s outstretched hand.
His hand closed over hers. Warmth enveloped her and drove the shrieking phantoms into the darkness as he pulled her into the expanding light.
“Daddy,” she said, and fell into his arms.
“Shh,” he murmured, and held her close. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She breathed in his scent and clung to him, happy to be reunited with the man who’d meant so much to her and who’d been taken away far too soon. Slowly she became aware of her surroundings, of the waning light overhead and the soft breeze ruffling her hair. She pulled away and looked around. “Where are we?”
“Same place as before,” he answered. “The Shadowlands between the spirit and physical worlds.”
Alex looked at the field around her and the trees in the distance. Colors were muted, as if she was seeing everything through a thin fog. Rows of headstones extended before her like marching soldiers. Recognition weighted her shoulders and turned her skin to ice. The same cemetery had haunted her dreams for years. The place where—
“I brought you here because I knew you’d be safe.”
She faced her father. “Safe from what? What were those things attacking me?”
“It doesn’t matter. They can’t harm you here.”
“It matters to me. What’s going on, Daddy?”
“Princess, please—”
“Don’t ‘Princess, please’ me. I’m not a child. I want answers.”
He looked at her, his green eyes contemplative, and he smoothed a narrow black tie over his pristine white shirt.
“Please, Daddy,” she said, “I want to know what’s going on. Why am I here? Did you pull me through again?”
He sighed and looked away. “No, I didn’t, not this time.”
“Then how—”
“I told you before that anyone could access this place”—he gestured to the surrounding graveyard—“if they knew how.” He looked back at her. “You’re apparently a quick study.”
“I haven’t studied anything. I was reviewing evidence, then I—” The vision of fire erupting from a gun barrel wavered before her.
“You connected to the consciousness of a dead vampire. You followed him, and that opened the doorway.”
“I don’t understand. What doorway?”
“The dark labyrinth, the path of shadow. That was the entrance to the true spirit world.”
Alex crossed her arms over her chest. Recalling the hands that pulled at her, she stroked her upper arms in an effort to dispel the chill that lingered. “What were those things that attacked me?”
“Lost souls denied entrance into the eternal rest of the spirit world. They wander the maze, preying on others. They’ll try to trick another soul into giving up its rightful claim to rest. If they can convince a spirit to trade places, they can cross over and leave the other soul to wander.”
“Why would they be denied?”
He shrugged. “Any number of reasons. Maybe they were a bad person in life, or maybe they feel that some injustice has gone unpunished.”
“Why did they attack me?”
“Because you’re still living. You haven’t truly crossed over. They can sense that, and they want what you have. They want life.”
“Lost souls,” she repeated. Another chill crept over her, this one from within. “Daddy”—her voice shook as she spoke—“why are you here?”
“Alexandra—”
“Why haven’t you crossed over?”
“I can’t,” he whispered. “Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I have unfinished business.”
“What does that—”
“I’m a lost soul, Princess.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That’s not true. You can’t be.” He reached for her, and she pulled away. “It’s not true!”
“It is. I chose this, Alexandra. Do you understand me? I gave up my claim to rest. I traded places with one of those wandering souls. I chose this.”
“But … why?”
“I had my reasons.”
“What—”
“I can’t explain them. I wish I could, but you’ll just have to trust me.”
The gentle breeze that had been blowing since their arrival died, only to return a moment later, stronger and with an ominous feeling, as though a storm followed in its wake. Alex looked to the horizon and saw a dark vortex churning in the distance. “Daddy, what is—”
“We have to hurry.” He grabbed her hand. “This way.”
Alex followed him, stumbling over the uneven ground. The wind picked up and howled in her ears. Small bits of debris flew past them as they ran. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the vortex barreling toward them, closer, roaring with all the fury of an awakened monster. “What is that thing?” she shouted over the howling wind.
“A sweeper,” he shouted back. “It finds unregistered consciousnesses and forces them back through the Veil.”
“What do you mean by ‘unregistered’?”
“Minds that aren’t dead but have broken through the Veil.” He tugged on her arm. “Hurry!”
Alex lost her footing and fell to the ground. She felt herself being pulled backward into the approaching tornado. Her hands clawed at the earth. “Daddy!”
“Alexandra!”
The vortex claimed her and spun her into the air. Her screams were drowned by the wind’s angry howls. She was tossed about and buffeted, carried higher and higher.
Something brushed her hand and then darted before her eyes, a bright streak of orange and black. She looked up from the center of the vortex to see bright blue skies filled with hundreds of butterflies. The tiny insects dove into the swirling mass of clouds and debris, latched on to her, and carried her upward.
A single monarch butterfly alighted on her hand. Its wings opened and closed slowly. As she and her tiny winged chariots burst into the radiant skies above the storm, the scent of sandalwood and cinnamon permeated the air.
She looked down at the spinning funnel and saw her father staring up at her. The tornado veered away from him, churning through the cemetery but leaving no visible destruction in its path.
She and the butterflies climbed higher, and the intoxicating aroma of sandalwood and cinnamon grew stronger. The wings of the single insect resting on her hand brushed her skin in a feathery touch, pulling her attention away from the receding ground. It beat its wings, stroking her hand, and she heard a voice whispering in her mind.
“Please wake up, Alex.”
“Varik,” she answered.
Varik held Alex’s hand, lightly stroking his thumb over her knuckles’ ridges. White gauze spiraled up his arm where he’d bitten himself, and a bandage covered the bite on his neck. Even though vampires healed much faster and cleaner than humans, both wounds had required stitches and would most likely leave scars.
“Guess you owed me, huh?” He raised her hand and kissed it, hoping for a reaction, some sign that she knew he was there.
Her breathing was slow and steady, and the color had returned to her cheeks. A monitor beeped and the black cuff on her arm inflated, automatically checking her blood pressure. They were in a small windowless treatment area in the emergency room. The doctors didn’t think she would need to be admitted, but until she regained consciousness, they were keeping her under observation.
He brushed the hair away from her face, watching her eyes move beneath the closed lids as if she was dreaming. “I’m so sorry, Alex.” His whispered words echoed in the dimly lit room. The monitor beeped
again, and the black cuff deflated with a soft hiss. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
Her chest injury had been a psychic wound, not physical. She’d channeled Gary Lipscomb’s final moments and the result had been a stigmata, a sympathy wound. Because it’d been fatal for Lipscomb, his death had threatened to take Alex as well.
Psychic wounds were the body’s reaction to the shared trauma. By forcing her to drink his blood, Varik managed to pull her back, to save her, but he knew she wouldn’t see it that way. Even though he’d saved her life, she’d focus on the resulting strengthened blood-bond and blame him for it, and he’d be lucky to get out of the room with his skin intact.
The ability to tap into another vampire’s death memories, as Alex had done, was rare. Varik had known only one other vampire who’d possessed the talent. That’s how he’d known to use blood to anchor Alex’s consciousness to the physical world, to keep Lipscomb’s death from pulling her down with it.
Minutes slipped away with nothing but the steady beep of the monitors to mark their passage. He could sense Alex’s presence in the back of his mind. Until the bond had been reestablished, he’d sensed her occasionally, seen the odd flash of what she saw or heard a stray thought, unless one of them deliberately opened the barriers separating their minds, as Alex had done when he kissed her.
Now her mind buzzed within his like a barely audible radio station. He couldn’t hear her thoughts, but he could sense her emotions. Fear and confusion masked the anger writhing beneath the surface. Anger directed at him.
The door opened behind him. The scent of musk and cloves filled the room, and Varik tensed as Stephen rounded the foot of the bed.
The blond vampire’s eyes were twin nuggets of amber rimmed in the crystal blue of a cloudless sky. He looked at Alex and then settled his hate-filled gaze on Varik. “I told you to stay away from my sister.”
“If I had, she’d be dead now.”
“Stay. Away. From. Her.”
“I heard you the first time. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a killer on the loose. I’m helping Alex—”
“And you’re doing a bang-up job, aren’t you? She’s lying in a hospital bed. You nearly killed her—again.”
Blood Law Page 15
