Riding Rifts (Vampire's Elixir Series Book 2)

by Pippa Amberwine

  “What?”

  “You’re going to break her heart.”

  “I . . . well . . .” Nova had put into words exactly what had been bothering me about our situation over the last couple of days. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt Katie, but I knew that sooner or later, I might have to. That was what I said to Nova. I couldn’t see the point in trying to pull the wool over the eyes of someone who would most likely be there to support her if the worst came to the worst.

  “Let’s hope that time never comes, Jevyn. I know she’s falling for you in a big way.” I looked surprised at his choice of words, although I knew it, too, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet. I also hadn’t admitted that the feeling was very much mutual. “Like I said, she tells me everything. I haven’t seen her so happy as she is when she’s with you for a very long time. I’m not saying this as a threat or anything as dumb as that, but please, when the time comes, be as gentle as you can. She might not come across as soft and gooey, but inside she’s a marshmallow.”

  I had to think for a second before I remembered what a marshmallow was, but once I had, I understood the comparison perfectly.

  “I give you my word, Nova, that if that time does come—and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that it doesn’t—then I’ll make sure she’s treated with the utmost respect. Something I also have for you incidentally. What you did on Dracos took a lot of nerve.”

  Nova nodded and stuck out his hand, and I was proud to shake it.

  By the time we’d headed back down, it had been decided that two groups of two were going to go out scavenging. One party was heading into downtown Boise to see what could be found. Another group had decided to go out of the city and try to find food in the next sizeable town, Twin Falls.

  “Why will it be easier there?” I asked.

  “Lots of supermarkets and fewer people. If the markets are a bust, there are some nice houses there you could try scavenging in,” Penny suggested.

  “What’s this you business,” I asked. “How come I’m going?”

  “Katie told us about your unusual travel system, so you can both go,” Penny said with her bright, cheerful smile. She was probably glad not to have to fly, given her beauty regimen. Wind-blasted hair would so be a bad look on Penny.

  “You okay with this, Katie?”

  “Sure, no problem. I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

  “Be real careful while you’re there though, Jevyn,” Penny added, frowning even though it made deep lines appear on her forehead.

  “Why?”

  “Twin Falls is a corporate town,” Nova said. “Gregori Industries has a major operation in the town. Very hush-hush, nobody really knows what’s going on there, but the town itself was decimated by the infection, so almost the only people there are company men. Very unfriendly to outsiders, so get in and out quickly without talking to too many people would be my advice. Pick a place, get in, get out, and get home.”

  “And you think Katie and I are the right people for the job?”

  “Katie told us about your little shape-shifting skill. The road to Twin Falls is controlled by SCAR. You two are likely the only ones among us who can get there.” Nova offered a grim smile, as if admitting that I might come in useful for something was a bad thing. Either that or the threat level in Twin Falls was higher than he’d mentioned.

  “We’re heading out now,” Marty announced to the room and then went up the stairs, slinging a pack over his back. Penny and Frankie followed.

  “We’d best make a move too,” Katie said, pushing herself up out of her seat.

  “What are you doing?” I asked Nova.

  “Keeping this place safe. Sparks and I are going to go out to see if we can find some weapons. She has a gizmo that opens doors of all types and varieties. I get the feeling we’re going to need them soon. Once we have them, we can breathe a little easier here. Derek’s staying behind because . . . well, because Derek, you know?”

  I looked at Derek, tapping away at his keyboard. Yeah, I got what Nova meant.

  “Are we going from the roof?” I asked Katie.

  “Sure are,” she said, and she offered me a bittersweet smile that I truly hoped was a sign that she was coming back from what we had seen.

  I didn’t know whether to be worried or sad that I hadn’t had the same reaction. Purely from a physical point of view, having seen a lot of Nindock’s attempts at rift travel, the sight of dead bodies didn’t seem to affect me much anymore.

  ***

  THE FLIGHT DOWN to Twin Falls was easy enough. I flew around to the south of the town on Derek’s advice. He had already plotted the best places to raid and came up with a local market that sat almost on the southern end the city. The big advantage was the large park behind the market where I could change back into my human form and put my clothes back on without being disturbed.

  Katie had been quiet again on the flight, but she seemed a lot more confident riding on my back.

  When she got off, she handed me my clothes and, out of habit, turned away. I sighed once, changed into my human form, and got dressed, despite the growing feeling I wouldn’t actually object to Katie seeing me naked, but that was something else for some other time.

  “Come on, and let’s just be careful here,” she said.

  “I know, corporate town and all that.”

  “Yeah, that and the guards.”

  “Guards?” I asked, failing to keep the surprise out of my voice. Nobody had mentioned guards.

  “Gregori Industries has guards around the town just in case, and they patrol regularly around the markets. They know that’s where people go to scavenge.”

  We crept along the side of the building, past a couple of other secondary stores whose windows were smashed in but otherwise seemed intact, and then peeked around the corner of the store itself.

  “Are they the corporate guys?” I asked, staring at the two men standing out front of the store armed with some kind of weapons. I knew guns were popular, but we had no similar weapons on Dracos.

  “No, the Gregori guys wear company uniforms. They just look like locals.”

  “So why are they guarding it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask.” Katie stepped around the corner as two women came out of the store with a cart laden with all manner of stuff. Evidently, the store was still well stocked.

  “Katie, hold up,” I said before I’d convinced myself that facing two men with guns was a good idea, but as Katie was already on her way, it seemed like she’d decided for me.

  “Hey,” Katie said as she approached.

  The men barely cast a glance her way but did stare at me a little suspiciously.

  “You locals?” The taller of the two men asked. He was dressed in a checked shirt, jeans, and a cowboy hat that matched his boots.

  “Sure,” Katie said. “We just came by to check out the market.”

  “One cart between the two of you. No exceptions,” he said, looking at me and tightening his grip on his rifle.

  “What happened to the Gregori Industries guards? We were expecting to have to try and persuade them, and I only have this pack. I just need some things to tide me over.” She half-turned to show her pack.

  All four of the people there stopped what they were doing and looked at me and then at Katie.

  “You haven’t heard?”

  Katie waited for them to speak, because it was obvious we hadn’t heard. She then gave up and said, “No, what happened.”

  “A monster,” one of the women said dramatically. “A monster came into town and killed them all.”

  “A monster?” I asked.

  “Now, Darlene, you know better than to spread wild rumours about the town. You’ll only scare folks. It wasn’t a monster. It was a man, and you know that full well,” the man said.

  “Chuck, I told you. Somebody saw that man change into a dragon and fly across town.”

  I perked up at that little snippet.

  �
��Grandma Perkins don’t know shit,” the more uncouth of the two men said. “She sits on her stoop all day sipping gin. She likely sees flying dragons every day.” The two men burst into laughter.

  “I’m telling you, Jim. That’s what she said,” Darlene insisted.

  “Shame on you for believing her, then,” Jim said.

  “Well, don’t you be too hard on her. The way things are, I wish I could sit on my stoop all day drinking. I heard it was a man. Big guy. Big sword. Fast as lightning, and twice as powerful. The guards never stood a chance. Guns didn’t even touch him.”

  I looked at Katie to see if she was thinking the same as me, but she just seemed to be listening in awe to what the group was saying.

  “I heard it was a gang of men,” the mousy-looking woman with the twitchy nose said.

  “No, Jody it was one man. That’s all,” Chuck said. He seemed the most competent of the group, so I stuck to him.

  “One man killed them all?”

  “Well, tell you the truth, there haven’t been so many guards lately. A lot already died, so probably no more than twenty or so. But even so, quite a feat for one guy, even a big guy like he was.”

  “Seven feet tall, I heard,” Jim said, sounding to me like he’d been consorting with Grandma Perkins.

  “Nearer eight, I heard.” Jody made her bid in the rumor mill auction.

  “He was big and armed to the teeth too.” Darlene upped the ante.

  “So why are you all here?” I asked innocently.

  “We’re here,” Chuck said, “to protect this place from outsiders. Which part of town did you guys say you came from again?”

  “West side,” I said.

  Unfortunately, I said it at the same time as Katie said, “East side.” From the cocking of guns and the looks of displeasure, I assumed they had spotted the disparity between our answers.

  “I suggest you folks get your stories straight and find some other place to pillage,” Chuck said.

  Katie and I both had our hands in the air.

  “Okay, okay,” Katie said. “We’re going. Do you happen to know where this all happened?”

  “All over town. Nearest one was just around the corner over there.” Chuck dipped his head past us to indicate a street off to the left a hundred yards away. “Now, get out of here before Jim gets mad.”

  We backed off across the parking lot until we were what I hoped was out of range and then fled, holding hands as we ran away from the market and its peculiar guardians.

  We dashed around the corner into the road we’d been pointed to and skidded to a halt.

  On a small grassy area, left wide open to the elements, were the various parts of two men, clearly corporate guards, given the bits of uniform each part was dressed in.

  I turned Katie away quickly. She’d seen enough death and mayhem in the last twenty-four hours to last her a lifetime.

  I ushered her away, crossing the road and heading back to the park where I’d landed earlier. I sat down on a bench and waited for my breathing to return to normal.

  Katie spoke first.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Well, I can’t read minds, but I think I am.”

  “Kam?” she said.

  “Kam,” I replied.

  “We have to do something, Jevyn. We can’t have that maniac running around doing that to people. The longer it goes on, the more chance SCAR will get involved, even if something weird is going on with them. If he leads them back to Nindock’s place, there’s going to be a mountain of dead bodies to worry about, not just a few.”

  “I know. But what can we do now? It’s going to be dark in a couple of hours, and for all we know, he’s still somewhere on the loose. Maybe we should hang around in case something happens, somewhere just outside the town so we can get back in quickly.”

  “Well, I guess that might work. I can actually smell him, you know?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. One of the side effects of being a vampire is heightened senses—smell, taste, you know. His scent is around here, but it’s weak, faint. If we go somewhere north, I should be able to pick up the scent on the breeze. I do know somewhere we could go, somewhere out of the way.”

  “Where? Is it far?”

  “About an hour and a half walk, maybe more.”

  “Hang on. Turn away.” I changed back quickly to dragon form. “An hour through town with all the dangers that brings or five minutes of flying time. Hop on.” I was glad to see Katie’s smile stretching across her face at my words.

  Five minutes later, we were sitting on an outcrop of rock overlooking the Snake River Canyon but, more importantly, looking back over the city of Twin Falls. I guessed this would be a pretty nice place to come, and there should have been hikers and mountain bikers making their ways through the rough ground to the north of the canyon to wherever they would cross over the river, back to the other side and the parking lot for the park.

  Those days seemed to have ended, though, as the place was deserted.

  The outcropping we were on was forty, maybe fifty, feet up, giving us a perfect view on what was turning into a beautiful evening. The air was warm, and apart from the sound of rushing water over the Shoshone Falls making me need a pee every thirty minutes, it was a beautiful spot.

  I lay back on the rough stone and felt the late afternoon sun warming my body.

  Katie was rustling around in her pack for a couple of water bottles and whatever food she had managed to bring. I took the water but said she should eat the food. She had more need of it than me.

  “I came here on a school trip once,” Katie said. “The only thing I remember was the guy leading us around and going on about how the falls are higher than Niagara.”

  “Sorry. I’ve heard of them but never seen them.”

  “Oh, it’s these huge falls on the border with Canada and way more impressive than these falls, but I suppose it’s probably nice to be able to make the claim. It’s one of the main tourist spots in this part of Idaho, so I suppose they have to big it up a little. I was only about seven and needed to pee all the time because of all the rushing water.”

  “I’m with you there,” I said, putting down the water before I drank any of it.

  Katie lay beside me, and we looked up at what was still a blue sky, despite it being well into the afternoon; the light was just on the cusp of changing to dusk.

  All I could see was sky and an occasional bird floating over, using the thermals the same way I did.

  Katie rolled over onto her side. “Jevyn?”

  I could feel the warmth of her breath across my cheek, and I closed my eyes. “Uh huh.”

  She flopped her arm over my chest, and I could feel her hand running across, tracing a pattern with her nails, and that one simple action did things to me that shouldn’t have been happening given the situation we were in.

  “I don’t want you to go back to Dracos, even though I know you have to. Is that too selfish?”

  “No,” I said after I’d thought about it for a while. “But I do have to. Whatever happens though, I will still come back to Earth. Nothing will stop me.”

  “Not even your mother?”

  “No, not unless—”

  “So, she could stop you?”

  “Only by locking me up. Look, Katie. I don’t want to go back either.” I slipped my arm around her so her head rested on my shoulder. “But right now, until all this mess is sorted out and we find a cure for you and your people, I have to. I don’t want to, but I have to. I feel like you and I have something . . . I don’t know . . . special between us.” I could feel her head moving against me, nodding. Her hair smelled of coconut. “Something I want to keep going to see were it ends up, if that makes sense. I can’t absolutely promise that I will always be able to come back, and if I can’t, I’ll be devastated, and I know you will too, but right now that’s the best I can offer, although I want to offer everything to you.”

  “Thank you, Jevyn,
” she said so quietly it was almost a whisper.

  “For what?” I actually felt like crap. I wanted to tell her how I really felt, deep in my bones, but I couldn’t because that would only have made matters worse than the mess they were in already.

  “For being honest. I understand what you are saying, but I need a little time to think about what you’ve said. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. It’s a lot to ask. I understand that.”

  “It is. Now, before we get any more morose, how about you tell me everything about your childhood and all the funny stories we all have from when we were kids.”

  “How about I don’t, not just yet. How about if I kiss you first?”

  “Well, I suppose that would be a start.” Her face broke out into a broad grin.

  I rolled onto my side so we were facing each other and gently pressed my lips against hers. With a sultry groan, she reached her spare arm around my neck and pulled me in closer.

  I did something then I probably shouldn’t have, something that was probably going to get me into a whole load of trouble. I let my spare hand wander. Nothing too rude. I just wanted to touch her skin, so I slipped my hand up the back of her shirt. Her skin felt like the soft skin of a newly ripened fruit, and she gave out a deep throaty groan as my fingers made contact.

  “When you change to dragon form and back to human form, why do you tell me to turn away?” she asked. “Are you shy? Have you never had a girl see your body before?”

  I pulled back to look into Katie’s sparkling eyes.

  “No, I’m not shy. Yes, I’ve had girls see me naked.”

  “So why? Come on, tell me.”

  “I suppose I didn’t want to embarrass you, if you weren’t ready for that kind of thing.”

  “I’m ready, Jevyn,” she said.

  I stared deeply into her eyes for a long moment, savoring how her words made me feel. And then we reached for each other, gentle at first, and then losing ourselves in the heat of passion.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Katie

  Shoshone Falls

  Outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, Earth

  I WOKE UP with a start and sniffed, wrapping myself in the blanket that had been covering me. Jevyn’s sweet scent filled my nose, so I turned away to sit up and sniff again. I knew he was there before I heard him speak behind me.