“I fear Walter was right. Would that we could, my sweet dove,” Zadok purred and stepped toward her. She pointed the gun at his head, and he lifted his hands in a show that he meant her no harm. His glittering yellow eyes caught her attention…and that was her mistake.
She felt it but could not fight it.
It snared her. Something wrapped around her mind like the coils of a snake. Terrible but warm, so very warm. Each time she struggled against what invaded her, it grew a little tighter. Surrender, his eyes said to her. It will be bliss. Her fear faltered, stuttered, and gave way. He murmured to her something in French that she didn’t quite catch as the words were too quiet. But their meaning was clear. Promises and platitudes, soothing and alluring. He isn’t going to harm me. I am safe. This is how it should be.
She lowered the gun.
“I told you she would not come willingly.” Zadok stepped toward her, and she watched him, rapt, unable to look away. He reached out to touch her, and she was helpless to stop him.
“Zadok. Remember. You are not to touch her. She could destroy you.”
Zadok growled in frustration and glared a hole into the taller vampire. Still, the spell did not break. “Why am I never allowed to have any fun? I—”
The sound of a shattering window and gunfire interrupted them. Zadok gurgled in pain, lurching as blood bloomed through the front of his white shirt.
Crimson poured down his chest as he collapsed to the floor. And with that finally went whatever reverie he had placed her in. She shook her head, feeling dizzy. With a frustrated snarl, she raised her gun to Walter and fired.
He vanished as the bullet was about to hit him.
The door was kicked open by a heavy boot, sending it crashing into the wall. Alfonzo marched in, in a long white coat emblazoned with a gold cross on the front. He carried a sword. An honest-to-God broadsword. The monsters turned to face him.
More gunfire, and another broken window.
The room descended into chaos.
“Stay safe!” Bella pulled a knife from her purse and ripped a slit down the side of her dress, yanking the tulle underskirt off. Maxine knew her gown would be ruined, and she hadn’t cared. They had planned for this. Hidden in the skirt had been a dozen blades. They flew up from the fabric and began to dash through the room at the woman’s command, tearing open throats and punching through ribcages. Monsters screamed as they died. “Stay safe, Maxine. Run and find somewhere to hide!”
She did not need to hear the instruction twice. Maxine went to run but found a hand had snatched her ankle. She looked down at the French vampire who had grabbed her.
Zadok was gurgling, coughing up blood that pooled around him. But he was not dead. In fact, the wound on his neck seemed to be…closing itself. She raised her gun and pointed it at his head, intending to put a few bullets through his brain to see if that could kill a vampire.
She wasn’t quite sure if it could, but she was eager to find out.
Zadok vanished in an explosion of rats. Maxine jumped back, startled as the sea of scrambling animals screeched and fled out the door to the foyer.
Now she had one task ahead of her. One goal. Escape.
If only she could be so lucky.
Walter sighed as he heard the mayhem from inside the building. The hunters were formidable. He had sent a pack of ghouls to distract the gunman on the roof, but they all now lay as dust on the street. “Master?”
“Keep the hunters at bay. No one is to touch Miss Parker. She is mine. They may threaten and draw close, but none are to lay a claw on her.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Good. Now…if you’ll excuse me.”
And with that, Walter summoned his rapier to his side and entered the fray.
Her progress out of the building was harrowing but eventually successful. She had emptied her revolver in the directions of monsters and had ducked into a nook to reload. Her fingers shook as she put the bullets into the chambers of the cylinder and clicked it back into place. The door was a dozen or so feet away. The monsters seemed intent on killing Bella and Alfonzo. They hardly glanced at her.
They know I’m not a threat.
“Do not run, Miss Parker.” Walter, the tall vampire, stood in the foyer with a long silver rapier in his hand. “It will only make matters worse for you.”
She aimed and fired at him, and he vanished into fog before the bullets could land. Like Hell she was going to listen to him! She made it outside and, without stopping to look around her, ran up the sidewalk as fast as she could in her heels. She turned and fled, leaving the chaos of the fight behind her.
She had made it one city block before the fog came.
Fog the likes of which she had never seen before. It was thick, impenetrable, and she could barely see the crimson moon overhead through its opacity. It rolled in like a cloud, pouring around the buildings like liquid.
She couldn’t debate its sudden arrival for long. A snarl came from the darkness. She held her gun high, pointing it into the murky shadows. Two eyes glinted back at her, thin, animalistic slits. Something crawled from the shadows. Something that was not vampire…and was not human. Something that seemed lesser than both. She took a staggering step backward at what she saw.
This must be a ghoul.
It appeared to have once been human and vampire but had befallen some great misfortune. It was gaunt and gangly, the flesh around its bones sunken and rotted away. All its teeth were far too long and pointed as if filed or worn to dangerous tips.
It snarled at her. She watched as blood, thick and black, drooled from its maw.
She screamed. She turned and ran into the fog, not caring what direction she headed. Simply away—away from the thing that looked as though it would eat her flesh from her bones. Walter had warned her that running would only exacerbate the situation. He had not been lying.
She tore through the fog in a wild panic, turning this way and that, barely able to see a few feet in front of her face. She heard the thing in the darkness…and heard that it was not alone. The ghoul had come with friends, and they were chasing her.
It was then that she rammed fully into someone who appeared too quickly from the fog for her to stop herself. In her panic, she staggered back and raised her gun. But it was neither a ghoul nor a vampire that stood before her. It was a handsome man in a long peacoat, watching her in surprise and amusement.
She furrowed her brow. “Jonathan?”
9
It was not Walter or a ghoul as Maxine had feared. Instead, it was the oddly charming gentleman she had shared a dance and a drink with barely an hour ago. The poor Englishman who had found himself caught in the middle of mayhem. He was cast dramatically in the flickering light of the amber glow of the gas lamp overhead.
He raised his hands in surrender, and she realized she still held her gun pointed at his chest. She lowered it and shook her head apologetically. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how you found me in the fog, but you should go.”
“I decided I could not leave you there to defend yourself alone in good conscience.” Jonathan glanced down to her gun. “Although it seems you have the situation handled.”
“Not really. Not I, at least. I will be all right, though. Mostly…” Who was she honestly trying to convince? The gun was useless against monsters like them. But it made her feel better regardless—any shelter in a storm.
“Mostly?”
She let out a breath. “I know this is a lot to absorb, Mr. Harker, but there are creatures in this world that aren’t human. They prey on mankind. I fear one of them has their sights set on me. He sent his friends—his minions—after me.”
“Do you know why?”
“No. I know what I have done to inspire him, but I do not know what he wants from me.”
He cast her an incredulous look with one eyebrow raised. But over which half—her ignorance over the vampire’s mission or that there was a vampire at all—she did not know. “I do not care if you believe me.” She
laughed sadly. “I merely need you to leave before you’re harmed.”
A crash and several inhuman roars inspired her to whirl, pointing her gun off into the darkness. The boom of gunfire and the screams of monsters were close, far closer than the distance she had run. Either the fight was moving after her, or between the fog and her fear she had gone in circles. It was a fifty-fifty chance at the rate her evening was progressing.
She kept her gun pointed aloft into the darkness. The screams in the shadows were not the sound of any beast or man she had ever known. Ghouls, perhaps. Or worse. The things at the gala that she had witnessed were beyond her imagination.
Harker pulled in a breath of air in surprise. “You aren’t lying, are you?”
She glanced over her shoulder and winced in regret. This was probably a great deal for him to witness. His brown eyes were wide as they scanned the shadows. She was sympathetic. This was all very new to her too. “I know, and I’m sorry. Attribute this to having too much to drink and go home. Go, before they see you with me and attack you.”
Another roar and a crash, and she turned her focus back on the battle that was coming closer, not at the man behind her. A figure lurched from the darkness, and its glinting, terrible red eyes gave it away. Another ghoul was coming for her.
It leapt through the air, and she opened fire. She put a few bullets into its chest and head before it landed in a heap some five feet away from her. It hissed and tried to claw at her, its fangs distended, its lips drawn grotesquely away from its rows of sharp teeth.
She waited for it to get to its feet. She waited for it to lurch upright and continue its goal of tearing her apart. She jumped back in surprise as it suddenly and abruptly burst into flame, howling as it was reduced to dust.
Strange. I did not do that. I suppose I shouldn’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.
“Do you know what is after you?” Jonathan asked from behind her. His hand took her empty one. Glad for her gloves, she squeezed it gently and felt him hold hers tighter in return. She gave the man credit for not being a blathering, weeping idiot by now. Most people would have been reduced to an incoherent child at the sight of what he had witnessed.
“A vampire.” She kept her back to the poor man caught out of his element as she was still desperately scanning the darkness for any figures in the fog. “There are several of them. I will…do my best to make sure they will not hurt you. They are after me. If it comes to it, I will give myself up.”
“You would sacrifice yourself for a man you do not know?” She barely caught the oddly sentimental tone in his voice, as if something had touched him very deeply. But she had no time to try to pry into his statement, as she was worried about the very real threat of the vampires in the darkness.
“They are not going to give up. They will hunt me no matter where I run. I see this now. You have been very kind to me this evening, Jonathan Harker. I will not have your blood on my hands. It seems they knew I might come prepared.”
“There is no need to be concerned. Mr. Harker has been dead for several years now.” The hand that held hers shifted as he moved closer to her back. His voice was next to her ear, and she could feel his words pool against her skin. It sent a chill down her spine—his breath was cold. Something shifted in the sensation of him at her back, like a curtain was drawn away from his soul. She felt the energy of him turn dark.
She whirled to face him, yanking her hand from his. He allowed it. She took a step back and pointed the gun now squarely not at Jonathan Harker…
But at Vlad Tepes Dracula. The man had melted away like the illusion of a dream and left the terror that she had seen in her vision, a nightmare made real. He towered over her. Long black tendrils hung loose around a pale face. Crimson eyes glinted in the torchlight, flickering like embers in the darkness. His skin was the color of white ash. All sense of life around him had fled.
Of course.
I am a terrible fool.
She had let herself believe anyone had been spending time with her of their own volition. No…he had merely been masquerading as a man. Hiding himself by means she didn’t understand. “Magic?”
“Of course.” His voice had changed back with the illusion. It had become the deep, velvety rumble she remembered from their shared vision. “A simple illusion. I chose Mr. Harker for I believed you might find his demeanor…” His eyes flicked to her gun and then back to her. “Disarming.”
He was a terrifying sight. Seeing him in the waking world, he was all the more overwhelming. His eyes had taken on a wicked gleam as they watched her, promising terrible things.
She shivered as she took a step away from him. This man dripped power. It filled the air around him and forced her breath to come short and shallow. It was as though invisible, dark wings snapped wide around her. She needn’t touch him to sense it. “I am impressed you managed to keep yourself hidden from me. You played me. And you did it well.”
“I am flattered.”
“The question remains, though, why?”
He bowed elegantly with one hand folded out in front of him, the other at his back. “I was greatly enjoying my time. Were you not?” His tone was coy as he straightened, an amused smile on his pale lips. She could see the barest glint of too-sharp teeth that hid behind them.
“I don’t generally enjoy being toyed with.”
He went to respond to her, but she didn’t give him the chance. She opened fire. The bullets reached the space where he was—where he had been—and passed harmlessly through empty air.
“Now, now…” That voice that seemed to vibrate through her on some strange level came from behind her as he scolded her like a child. His hand grasped the gun in her hand. She turned to face him as he lifted it over her head, pointing it harmlessly into the air. She was nearly out of bullets, regardless. “There is no need for any of that. You know it will do you no good. The ghoul would have killed you, had I not ended his life first. I do hate to be disturbed.”
She cried out and had to let go of the gun as he crushed it in his hand like it was made of paper. He tossed it aside, and she heard it clatter to the ground. He reached for her, and she took a staggering step back. “Don’t! You can’t touch me, remember?”
“I would like to test that theory. Come here, my dear.” He held his hand out to her. “If you are right, I die, and your problems are solved. If I am right…you will belong to me.” A small, snide smile spread over him. “Either way, I win.”
She furrowed her brow. What did he mean by that? She didn’t have time to dwell on his statement. He reached for her again, and she turned and ran. Vlad laughed behind her. She knew it was pointless, but for now, she was free. There wouldn’t be another opportunity like this one. She took off running in the direction of what she hoped was her home.
It had only been a few hundred feet before she heard wings beating in the night air.
A great deal of wings.
And they were headed in her direction.
She couldn’t help but glance back. The sight of the swarm of huge black bats, swirling in a cloud above the fog, made her breath catch in her throat. Catching sight of the thousands of the animals, dark and innumerous overhead, showed that he hadn’t lied. She realized in that moment that she had no idea who—or more correctly what—she was up against.
The bats dove toward her, and she turned to run again. She couldn’t move fast enough. She screamed as the creatures overtook her, and her world changed from fog into a sea of black wings and claws that scratched at her.
Maxine struggled and fought—swung her arms against the things around her—but it was hopeless. Something else had taken over. There was only sensation of movement and the ground leaving her feet. She felt tumbled end-over-end as though she had been rolled down a hill.
When it ended, she fell to her knees and felt grass, damp in the dewy fog, under her. Grass? Where am I? What happened?
Her world was wheeling around her. She felt disoriented and dizzy. Still, she tried to push
herself up, even as she tilted dangerously and threatened to crash back down.
A hand took her elbow and lifted her, planting her on her feet. Firm, but not harsh.
She knew who it was. She turned, looking up at Vlad as he towered over her. His lips formed a line that promised wicked and cruel things. His glinting crimson eyes shone with a deeply sinister amusement. She pushed away from him and took another step back. She glanced around herself for an escape, but she could barely see more than five feet in the dense fog.
“And where will you run? Even if you could escape me on foot, you know not where I have brought you.” He was right. She had no idea where she was, and she had already tried to outrun him once already and had failed miserably.
“What do you want from me?” She tried to sound firm and angry. Honestly, she sounded frantic more than anything, even to her own ears.
“That, my dear, is both a very simple and very complex topic…” He lifted his hand to her. She looked at it, to him, then back to him incredulously. He insisted. “Give me your hand.”
“You’re mad if you think I’m going to—”
He cut her off as he stepped toward her. The simplest action from him choked the words in her throat. If she couldn’t run, what could she do? Punch him? The idea was laughable. The hunters were likely too far away to aid her now. He must have known that when he had brought her here.
“Maxine…” His dusky growl brought her gaze up to meet his red eyes.
That was her mistake.
She should have learned. She tried to look away before it was too late, but if Zadok had been alluring, this man was inescapable. Something seemed to snare her in its grasp like talons, and the whole world dropped away. Nothing else mattered.
There was only him, and her, and this moment in time.
He stepped around her, circling her slowly. She stood there, hovering, feeling as though she was wrapped around his fingers or dangling from puppet strings.
Heart of Dracula Page 10
