His knuckles whitened on the weapon. “Maybe.”
“You know, I kept having this recurring dream about you staking me. But lately it’s shifted so I’m the one staking you.”
“Prophetic?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out sooner or later, won’t we?”
“Probably sooner than later.”
“Right.” I placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart beating beneath my touch. Faster than it should be for a master vampire, but much slower than a human. I held up my still-bleeding arm to him. “Sure you don’t want a taste? I know how much you enjoy that.”
His eyes moved to my arm. “Sorry, Sarah. But sloppy seconds aren’t my style.”
In a flash he grabbed both my wrists in one hand and pulled me closer to him. The stake came up to graze my chest.
“Are you truly lost to me?” he said, the strain now evident on his face.
I tried to pull away from him, but he was strong. I don’t think I ever realized just how strong Thierry was before.
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch,” I snarled through clenched teeth. “Or kill me. One or the other. Make your choice.”
His expression darkened. “I’m deciding.”
I managed a smile at that. “Right. Of course. Let me think back to earlier today. I think I asked you to slap me and you couldn’t. If you couldn’t do that, then how could you stake me?”
“I can stake you if I have to,” he growled. “And I will. I was instrumental in ending the last wave of nightwalkers that existed. I know very well the danger they represent.”
“Blah blah blah. So, what happens after you stake me? Will the world go back to normal?”
“I won’t know. You said to me once that if you couldn’t live with me, you’d rather not live without me. Well, I feel exactly the same way about you.”
“So sentimental.” I said it snarkily, but my throat felt suddenly very thick. “Who knew?”
His black eyes narrowed. “Would you hesitate to stake me if you held this weapon in your hand right now?”
“Not for a moment.”
All remaining hope left his eyes as I uttered that flat statement. “I see.”
I gasped as I felt the sharp tip of the stake jab against my chest over my currently unbeating heart. He was going to do it.
“Je t’aimerai toujours,” he said. I’d never heard him speak French before.
“What?”
He pulled the stake away from me for a moment. I figured it was to get some velocity. After all, it takes a lot of upper body strength to properly pierce a rib cage.
I tried to prepare myself. I’d wanted this, I’d asked for this—hell I’d begged for it.
Be careful what you wish for: part two.
The very next moment, Thierry crushed his mouth against mine. It was the last thing I’d expected. His tongue swept against mine in a kiss that nearly hurt.
Way different from being staked. And way, way better.
I blinked rapidly when he finally pulled away. My head swam.
“Was that a good-bye kiss?” I asked shakily.
He swallowed. “You were right. I can’t stake you, Sarah. No matter the consequences.”
“Wish I could say the same.” I clutched the stake I’d snatched away from him during our impromptu make-out session and sliced it into his chest.
Chapter 22
Thierry clutched at the stake and staggered back from me a few steps before he fell to the ground. He looked very shocked.
Couldn’t say I blamed him.
“Sarah,” Gideon growled as he finally dragged himself back up next to me again. He looked down at Thierry. “You killed him.”
Thierry continued to gasp for breath.
“No,” I said. “I staked him, like I told him I would. There’s a difference.”
“You missed his heart?”
“If I hadn’t, he’d be a sullen, moody puddle right now, wouldn’t he?”
Gideon’s jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you finish him?”
I shrugged.
Gideon cast a dark look over at Steven. “What am I paying you for, boy? A little assistance or a warning might have been nice.”
I tried to pay attention, but I was dealing with a rather intense inner battle at the moment. I could have killed Thierry, but I didn’t. Something stopped me.
When he kissed me it worked a bit like a slap, helping the other side of me gain much-needed strength.
He loves me. He wouldn’t kill me.
Maybe he should have.
“Drink more, then,” I heard Steven say. “If you want to.”
“Give me everything,” Gideon commanded. “I want her power. I want her strength. Everything.”
“Understood.”
“What are you—?” I began, but then felt Gideon’s sharp fangs sink into my throat.
His fangs? He had fangs already? How was that even possible? Fledglings don’t develop fangs for a long time after they’re sired. I got mine quicker than normal only because I’d been on a fairly steady diet of master vampire blood from the beginning.
But Gideon wasn’t a typical fledgling.
And he wanted more.
I tried to ignore the pain of his bite. I looked down at Thierry. He looked helplessly up at me. I wanted him to stay back. It was safer to have to deal with a stake in his chest at the moment than come any closer to this.
“Open yourself up to this, Sarah,” Steven instructed. “Give Gideon everything.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“You have to.”
His voice was strange and different from before. Darker. Scarier. I tried to look at him and noticed that his eyes weren’t just red anymore, they seemed to be blazing.
Hellfire.
It was the demon, wasn’t it? Steven channeled demon powers in order to work his wizard magic. Had Gideon known that? I didn’t think so. It would have been too risky. Gideon was trying to avoid hell, not welcome it into his life and invite it out to a leisurely, candlelit dinner.
The demon wanted Gideon. And Gideon was trying to escape by having me sire him.
“Do it, Sarah,” the demon possessing Steven again told me—only his lips didn’t move. I heard his voice in my head. “Let it go. I can help you.”
A helping hand from a demon to help transfer my power to Gideon Chase. Okay.
“No,” the demon said as if it could read my mind. “Not just your power. Your curse as well. Everything.”
My eyes widened. Then I slammed them shut and concentrated every ounce of energy I had on relaxing and opening up my mind. Gideon wasn’t feeding only on blood then, but on everything behind it as well. My power—the energy that came from three separate master vampires. With the demon’s help, I felt that strength slip away from me as it was channeled into Gideon.
A moment later he raised his eyes to mine. His were black with power. They looked exactly like death.
“More,” he said. “I need more.”
I hesitated. The part of me that cared for Gideon on some strange level tried to pull away in an attempt to save him from his own greed. But he held me firm and continued to drink.
“Give him everything,” the demon instructed me in that voice as cold as the night around us.
I nodded, and I did as he said.
My nightwalker held on tight for a moment, kicking and screaming, as she was scraped away from my insides by the pull of the demon’s magic. I felt the black poison of my curse curl into a ball from where it had settled deep inside me. She liked it there. It was comfortable. But, like rotten taffy, sticky and smelly, it finally pulled away and I felt it channel out of me and directly into Gideon.
His eyes widened and his lips peeled back from his long, sharp fangs. He looked around at the night as if seeing it for the first time.
“I never thought it would feel this good,” he said. “You did it, Sarah. You gave me everything.”
I swallowed hard. “You’re welcome.”
>
He smiled and it chilled my insides. He was a monster. He even looked like a monster now, black eyes, sharp teeth, and a strange maniacal look of too much power in too small a space.
I was afraid of him. And for him.
I wasn’t sure if he knew just how much he’d taken from me. The demon inside Steven had transferred every last ounce of my extra master vampire strength to him. Plus, as an added bonus, he now had my nightwalker curse.
I’d leave the celebrating for a bit later, though.
Gideon cocked his head to the side and looked down at Thierry, who was now struggling to get back to his feet. “Why don’t I finish him off for you, Sarah? I hate loose ends.”
He took a step toward Thierry, but I moved to stand in his way.
“So now what?” I asked. “You got what you wanted. You’re a vampire now.”
“I’m more than just a vampire.”
“True. But what’s your next move?”
He smiled. “Anything I want. But I’m going to start with killing the master vampire.” He blinked those black eyes of his. “Both of them. I think I’ll do it with my bare hands just for kicks.”
“What about me?”
He studied me. “What do you want me to say?”
“Just tell me the truth.”
His lips quirked. “For a moment I thought there was something there. But perhaps it was only the pain. I will be forever grateful for what you’ve done for me, Sarah. But I warn you not to stand in my way right now.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll be sorry you did.”
I drew in a shaky breath. He noticed. He placed his hand over my chest to feel my heart beating and he raised an eyebrow. “Very interesting.”
“You’re the proud owner of a shiny black nightwalker curse.”
“Lucky me.”
“Probably sorry you burned the grimoire now, huh?”
“I’ll get used to it. Like I said, it’s an asset. It only gives me more power.”
He flinched then and backed up a step from me. I realized that something invisible had slashed his chest. There was now a deep scratch on his flesh.
“What the hell was that?” he snarled.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I did that,” the demon said.
I backed up until I felt Thierry behind me. Somehow, in the last couple of minutes he’d managed to soundlessly remove the stake from his chest. There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead and his eyes were shadowed with pain.
“You’re ours, Gideon,” the demon said. He looked so harmless in the body of the teenaged wizard—Death Suck T-shirt under his black jacket. But he wasn’t harmless. “Ever since the hellfire touched you, you’ve been ours. You can run, but you can’t hide.”
Gideon’s black eyes went cold with fear. “But I’m healed. My scars are gone. The pain is gone.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the demon said. “You think we give up that easy? You have no idea. You belong to us. Nothing you did would have made a bit of difference. You made your choices, now you must deal with the consequences.”
Gideon touched the bleeding scratch on his chest. When he pulled his fingers away the blood caught fire. The hellfire was still inside him. And now the demon was coaxing it out.
“We’re close to the end now. And if you don’t step aside when the blood begins to flow it will devour you whole.”
We were close to the end now. Gideon’s end.
“I have money,” Gideon said. “Lots of money. I can pay you whatever you want. Don’t do this.”
“Really?” the demon said. “How much are we talking about here?”
“Lots. Everything. I’ll give you everything I have. Everything I am.”
The demon smiled. “Yes, you will.”
Gideon’s expression twisted with fear and he looked at me. “Sarah—”
Thierry’s arm curled around my waist as he pulled me farther away from Gideon, who now reached out to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said as tears burned my eyes.
“So am I,” Gideon said.
The hellfire inside Gideon leaked out through the cut the demon had made. He looked down at his hands as they filled with flames. He blinked, and his eyes changed from black back to their normal emerald green.
“It doesn’t hurt.” He smiled at me. “I suppose I should count my blessings, right?”
A moment later the flames consumed him and he disappeared in a column of fire.
I choked out a sob and turned to Thierry, grabbing him into a tight hug. He gasped with pain.
“Sorry,” I managed. “I’m sorry.”
“For staking me?” he asked.
“For everything.”
“Don’t be.” He took my face between his hands and stared down at me. “Are those tears for Gideon?”
“Some of them.”
He kissed them away. “I understand.”
“He’s gone.”
“I know.”
He held me for a while until I calmed down a little. Then I pulled back from him and jabbed a finger in his direction. “I think I told you to stake me, mister. And you totally bailed on me like a chump.”
“I did.” He gingerly touched his chest. “And I think I paid the price for that.”
“I did that to keep you safe.”
“I’d hate to see what you’d do if you were very upset with me.”
“But what if—”
“Enough talking.” He pulled me—gently—against him and shut me up with a very deep kiss.
I felt a hand on my back after a moment. It was Steven. He looked completely shaken, but at least his eyes were back to normal.
“Dude, what just happened?”
“You were possessed by a demon,” I said.
He groaned. “Again? That so sucks.”
“Do me a favor?” I asked. “Go let Amy out of the crypt?”
He nodded and ran off to two crypts nearby, letting out a now-conscious Amy from one and his mother from the other. Steven embraced his mom very hard, and she patted the top of his head.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I promise I won’t do any more demon magic.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “But we’re still moving to Germany. And then you’re grounded for six months. And I’m confiscating all of your CDs.”
“Aww, Mom!”
Thierry stroked the hair back off my face. “How do you feel? Did he take too much blood?”
“I’m a bit woozy, but I’ll survive.” I looked up at him. “But he took everything. All of my extra strength. My curse. Everything. I’ve totally regressed.” I ran the tip of my tongue over my teeth. “Still got the fangs, though.”
“Perhaps if he’d continued to drain you, you might have become human again entirely.”
“Let’s not go overboard.” I managed a smile. “Why would I want to give all of this excitement up?”
“An excellent point.”
Veronique stood nearby with her arms crossed—the spell keeping her silent and still long over. She finally approached.
“I can’t believe this,” she said.
“Nor can I,” Thierry replied. “You sided with Gideon?”
“In an attempt to help stave off any unnecessary bloodshed.”
“Ah, I see. So it was entirely altruistic, was it?”
She sighed. “It did not turn out as I envisioned it.”
“No, I don’t suppose it did.”
“I am sorry.” She turned to me. “And to you as well.”
I shook my head. “You know, I do question your methods, but if you weren’t there yesterday letting me drink from you, things might have gone very badly.”
She shook her head with stunned disbelief. “Thierry, you were the Red Devil… all this time? I can’t believe it.”
“I was,” he said.
She tilted her head as she looked at him. “Although, now that you mention it, there is a striking similarity…” She swallowed. “How couldn�
�t I have known? It all makes sense now. But you knew, Sarah. Just from seeing him with his mask. You saw who he was underneath.”
I shrugged. “It took a couple of times, but yeah, I did.”
“You truly love my husband, don’t you?”
“Completely.”
There was a strange look of wonder and disbelief on her face, as if she was only just now realizing that it could possibly be true.
She touched my hand. “I’m happy for you, then. Both of you.”
I nodded. “Always glad to know my boyfriend’s wife approves of our relationship.”
Amy chose that moment to approach awkwardly. “Sarah?”
I moved toward her, but she took a step back from me. I held out my hands. “I’m so sorry about what happened before.”
She touched her throat, by which I’d held her up against the wall like a rag doll. “Are you better now?”
“I’m better than better. I’m cured.”
Her eyes widened. “No more curse?”
“It’s history.”
She made a little joyful noise and grabbed me in a huge hug, big enough to squeeze the breath out of me. It was so good to breathe again. Really, it’s underrated, this breathing thing.
Ditto the heartbeat. I’d never take it for granted again.
My cell phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my purse to answer it.
“Sarah.” George’s weary voice was on the other end.
“Hey,” I said.
“We have literally searched the entire city. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. We can’t find Amy anywhere and now it’s after midnight.” His voice quavered. “It’s all my fault. Gideon’s going to kill her and it’s all my fault.”
“Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.”
“How can you sound so blasé? This is Amy! Little darling Amy, and she’s dead! Barry is going to kill me.”
“You’re probably right. He’s ornery, that one.”
There was a long pause. “Did we miss something important?”
“Only a little. But Amy’s okay, so don’t worry. And Gideon… Gideon’s gone.” My throat felt thick as I said it.
George let out such a long sigh of relief I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “I think I’m going to throw up. Like, seriously. Right here.”
Tall, Dark & Fangsome Page 26
