But by the time they pulled up at a set of wrought iron gates set in a massive stone wall, Val’s heart was pounding so hard it was all she could do to breathe. She watched, swallowing, as Cade glared up at the camera mounted on a pole jutting from the fence. “I’m here to see Ridgemont.”
There was a pause. Cade looked over at her in the silence. Despite his grim expression, he sent her a wave of warmth and love that made her fear recede. “I love you, Val. No matter what happens, remember that.”
But even as he comforted her, she could sense the guilt in his mind, the regret at taking her into danger. “Ridgemont set us on this road,” Val reminded him, trying to shield her fear from him. “We’re just playing the hand we were dealt. Anyway, I love you too. And we’re both walking out of this thing alive.”
She caught a shadow of doubt before he quickly hid it.
“We are going to make it, Cade.”
“Yeah.”
The gates swung open. As they drove through them, a small voice in Val’s mind whispered, Behind you. There’s something behind you. She fought it, trying to concentrate on Cade’s grim, handsome profile. But every instinct she had was screaming that clawed hands were reaching over the seat for her face. Until, unable to take anymore, she whipped around and stared wildly over the back seat.
Nothing there.
Shamefaced, she looked over at Cade, who was looking at her sympathetically. She gave him a sickly smile. “I’m a little… jumpy.”
“It’s not you. You’re picking up Ridgemont’s power field.”
“What? You mean this sense of” -- she hesitated to say evil -- “this feeling is real?”
“Yeah.” He pulled over and parked the car.
At the end of a curving walkway in front of them was a huge mansion that looked like something out of an English comedy of manners. It should have looked cheerful in the sunlight, sprawling, built of sturdy red brick, covered in ivy, surrounded by perfectly maintained beds of flowers. Yet staring out at it, Val shuddered at the sense of darkness it radiated. “Damn. It’s got its own psychic soundtrack.”
He nodded and opened the car door. “The first time I saw Psycho, I thought, ‘I know that music. Follows Ridgemont wherever he goes.’”
“And you lived with that for more than a century?” Wrinkling her nose, she got out of the car. “How did you keep from going nuts?”
Cade took her elbow and started up the walk. “You can get used to damn near anything.”
“Wait.” Val licked her dry lips and stared at the door, fighting to ignore the voice that hissed, Run. “Are you just going to go knock? Shouldn’t we try to sneak in or something?”
Cade shot her a glance of barely contained impatience. “You don’t sneak up on somebody with that much power, Val. He feels us just as clearly as we feel him.”
She blinked. “Damn, I hope we don’t feel anything like that.”
Cade’s lips twitched. “I let slip a thought about the Psycho comparison once. He said he hears the theme from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood when I’m around. I was deeply offended.”
Val grinned. “He was pulling your chain. I think it’s more like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”
Then the front door opened, and evil rolled out in a dark wave. Val whirled to face it as her heart leaped into her throat. Ridgemont grinned at them, then winced up at the cloudless blue sky. “Miserable day out. Come in out of the sun.”
The light was beating down on top of her head, but Val instantly decided she preferred third degree burns to getting any closer to him.
Cade lifted a brow at her, and she gritted her teeth. She was not a coward, damn it. But stepping through that door was the hardest thing she’d ever done. When Ridgemont stepped aside to let them in, Val forced herself to saunter past him despite her howling instincts.
He looked so damn normal with those scarred, battered features and the beefy shoulders that put her in mind of an aging jock. But each time she glanced away, she half expected to see rotting flesh when she turned back.
“Why do I keep wishing for a cross?” Val thought to Cade.
“Wouldn’t do you any good,” Ridgemont said, with a slow, mocking stretch of the lips that wasn’t remotely a smile.
“If you broadcast, he’s going to pick it up,” Cade told her, then turned to Ridgemont. “Let’s get this done.”
The vampire nodded and turned. “I’ve got the arena ready.”
Arena? she thought with a new flare of fear. Oh, God. They fought in an arena in my dream.
They followed the ancient, Val grateful he wasn’t walking behind her. The thought of her sister in his power made her shudder. “Where’s Beth?” she demanded.
Ridgemont shot her a smile that made her flesh crawl. “Waiting for us.”
How the hell are we supposed to kill that, she wondered, trying to keep the thought from surfacing enough to be read. Despair threatened to swamp her. She shook it off. Despite the dream, Cade believed they had the strength together. That was enough.
It had to be.
As they walked through the house, she was vaguely aware of an impression of wealth and taste -- fine paintings, rich carpeting, antique furniture. If not for the sense of suffocating evil, she might have been impressed.
As they started down a corridor, Ridgemont nodded toward a set of stairs. “Up that way is the gallery where you’ll find your sister.”
Automatically, Val started toward the stairs, then stopped in mid-step and looked back at Cade. “What about you?”
“I’ll be in the arena,” he said. “You’ll be able to see me.”
Close enough to link when he needed her, she realized, reading the reassurance in his eyes. She nodded and started up the stairs two at a time.
The doorway opened out into a balcony overlooking a huge, round room. Val stepped through warily, her eyes immediately flying to a familiar figure sitting straight and still in a chair. Beth’s head snapped around, brown eyes widening with terror until she recognized her sister. “Valerie!” Automatically, she started to get up, only to jerk to a stop. She was handcuffed to the arms of the chair.
“God, baby!” Val rushed over to her and stooped to give her a fierce, hard hug.
“Are you… Ouch! You’re squishing me!”
Val remembered her new strength and let go hastily. Beth collapsed back in her seat. Swallowing her anxiety, Val scanned her sister’s face, taking in the pale, tight features, the long, white neck revealed by the scooped neckline of her knit shirt. No bites. She sighed in relief, then grimaced. Where I can see them.
“Are you okay?” Beth asked, looking her over just as hard.
For a moment, Val almost put a guilty hand to her own throat, then remembered the evidence of Cade’s fangs had healed. “I’m fine. Has he hurt you?”
“No, not yet.” Beth’s soft mouth drew into a grim line. “But I could tell he’s been thinking about it.”
Val stared grimly down at the steel bracelets around Beth’s slender wrists. “We’ve got to get you out of these cuffs.”
Beth frowned down at them. “One of his flunkies has the keys.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have time to find him.” Val grabbed a cuff in one hand as she braced the other against the arm of the chair. I can do this. I can.
She yanked.
Beth gasped. The thick handcuff chain snapped like a five-dollar necklace. With a grunt of satisfaction, Val grabbed Beth’s other arm and broke the chain that held it. Grinning, she looked down at her sister’s eyes.
And saw fear.
Beth shrank back in her chair, brown eyes widening until the whites were visible. “He said McKinnon would make you one of them. He did, didn’t he?” The blood drained from her face until it looked as though she’d pass out. “You’re a vampire.” She spoke the last words in a soft, despairing whisper.
Val’s heart contracted in a hard, hopeless ball and lodged in her throat. Oh, hell. “It was the only way to stop Ridgemont,” she said, knowing he
r sister would never understand.
Beth scrambled to her feet and backed away, grief and fear on her face. “What… what are you going to do to me?”
Val reached out, then dropped her hand as Beth recoiled. “You don’t really think I’m going to hurt you?” Hurt bloomed in her chest.
“Are you?”
“It’s not like the movies, Beth. We’re not killers.”
Beth thrust her chin at Ridgemont, who was watching from the arena below. “He is.”
“That’s because he’s a sociopathic sonofabitch.”
“Thank you!” the ancient called mockingly.
She ignored him. “Cade and I are different. We’re still human. We’re just changed. It’s a virus or something.”
Beth shook her head. “Viruses don’t give you fangs, Val.”
I’ve got to get her out of here, Val thought. So just go with it. Looking into the fear and pain in those beloved brown eyes, Val forced her shoulders to straighten. “Okay, you win, I’m a monster. Get out. You’re free. Go.”
Her sister glared over the balcony railing at the ancient, who watched them from below. “He’s not going to let me leave.”
“Ridgemont doesn’t give a damn about you,” Val said, knowing it was true. “He just used you to make sure we didn’t back out.” She glared down at the ancient. “Isn’t that right, bloodsucker?”
“Oh, yes. In fact…” He grinned as if hugely entertained. He wore a chest plate she recognized from her vision. He glanced at a slim black man who was working with a tangle of equipment at his feet. “Miller?”
The man looked up at him. “Yes, sir?”
The ancient nodded toward the balcony. “Escort that young lady out of the house and call her a cab. I’m done with her.”
“Yes, sir.” He slipped out the door.
Val’s gaze slid to Cade, who was half-dressed in his own armor, surrounded by a couple of assistants tightening straps. He looked up at her, his expression grim, and gave her a sympathetic nod.
She turned to find Beth staring at her, silent tears rolling down her face. She said nothing. Val couldn’t think of a single word that wouldn’t make things worse.
Miller stuck his head in the balcony doorway and said, “Miss?”
Beth looked from him to Val and hesitated, obviously torn.
“You remember one thing,” Val said in a low, shaking voice. “No matter what happens, I’m still human and I’ll love you until I die.”
Beth stared, paling. “You think he’s going to kill you.”
Despite herself, Val smiled a little bitterly. “I’m already dead, remember?”
Gray eyes stared into hers. Then Beth drew herself up to her full height. “I’m not leaving you. No matter what you are.”
Val cursed silently. “I don’t want you here. It’s not safe.” What if they lost and Ridgemont decided to celebrate afterward?
“I don’t care.” Her face took on that mulish expression Val knew too well from living with her for eighteen years. “You’re still my sister, no matter what else you are.”
If Beth refused to go and Ridgemont took her, the whole thing would be pointless. Cade could easily die for nothing. Helpless rage boiled up in Val, triggering a rise of the Hunger. Mentally cursing the rotten timing, she started to suppress it, then changed her mind and let it come. Fangs erupted into her mouth. Deliberately, she opened her jaws and bared them, pulling her lips back into a snarl she made as monstrous and terrifying as she could. “LEAVE, Beth!”
Her sister’s eyes widened in horror as she stumbled back in shock. Val hissed like a movie vampire. With a strangled scream, Beth whirled and ran past Miller. Her feet thumped on the carpeted stairs as she descended them two at a time. It was all Val could do not to collapse in the chair and sob.
Slow, mocking applause filled the air. “I haven’t seen a show this good since I watched the Bard play Hamlet,” Ridgemont called mockingly.
A loud crack sounded.
Staggering, the ancient turned, lifting a hand to his bleeding mouth as he stared at Cade. “Why, gunslinger -- a sucker punch. I’m surprised at you.”
Cade replied with a roll of inventive obscenities, at least half of them in languages Val didn’t even understand.
Ridgemont grinned. “I didn’t even think you knew those words.”
“You broadened my horizons, you son of a whore. Let’s quit fucking around and finish this,” Cade snarled. He looked up at Val, his eyes flat and dark. “Come on, sweetheart.”
Shaking off her grief, she moved to the chair, ignoring the handcuffs still hooked to the arms. She sat down and leaned back, closed her eyes and let her body go limp. And went to him.
He enveloped her in all the warmth and sympathy he couldn’t show in front of the enemy. “Baby, I’m sorry.”
“She thinks I’m a monster.”
“She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.”
“Doesn’t she?” She remembered the look in Mason’s eyes, the taste of blood in her mouth.
“Look at Ridgemont and tell me we’re anything like that.”
Ridgemont watched them with dark amusement while one of his assistants buckled something onto his forearm. He looked smaller through Cade’s eyes, but the sensation of age, power, and evil swirling around him felt even stronger. “Jesus, he keeps getting nastier every time I look.”
“He bleeds, Val. That means he can die.”
“Lift your arm, Cade,” one of the men said to him. “I need to tighten the strap.”
He obeyed, and the man began to pull a length of leather attached to a metal cuff around his arm.
“What are we doing? What’s going on?”
“He’s helping me with my armor.” They were wearing a breastplate made of some metal that gleamed like silver. The attendant grabbed another strap and cinched it tight.
“What the hell does Ridgemont think this is -- the thirteenth century?”
“With a few twenty-first century improvements, yes,” Cade thought, arching his chest to check the fit and nodding his approval at the assistant. “The armor is Ridgemont’s design, made of a space-age polymer stronger than steel at half the weight. Not that weight means a damn to us.”
“Why wear armor at all? Seems he’d want it as dangerous as possible.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t want it over too fast. Besides, with our strength, it’d be easy for one of us to cut the other in half.”
She winced. “Pleasant image.” A thought occurred to her. “Can he hear us?”
“No, not when we’re sharing minds like this.”
Ten minutes later, Cade was fully armored, from the gorget around his throat to greaves that covered the shins of his boots. He flexed his arms and squatted, bunching his muscles, testing the fit, directing the attendant to tighten this or loosen that.
Nearby, Ridgemont was doing the same. The tension grew until it seemed to fill the air like the thick pine scent of the sawdust that covered the floor.
At last, the ancient walked over to him, carrying a sheathed longsword in both hands. He presented it with a slight bow. “A new weapon. I think you’ll find it satisfactory.”
Cade accepted the scabbard and drew the sword, the blade producing a slithering hiss as it left its leather sheath. It was four feet long, with an elegantly simple hilt and cross guard, both in the same metal as the rest of the weapon. The blade glinted in the bright overhead lighting as he sighted down its length, examining it for flaws, measuring its weight. Val felt his pleasure in its superb balance, the way it seemed to float in his hands. “Very nice.”
Ridgemont inclined his head again and stepped back.
“Cade?” the attendant asked.
He sheathed the sword and traded it for the helmet the man held. It was shaped like the helm of a medieval knight, but the visor was made of transparent bullet-resistant polycarbonate. He noted the change with pleasure, knowing it would give a better field of view than the slitted faceplate of his old helm
, which had cut peripheral vision down to almost nothing.
Dangling from the helmet’s conical point was a two-foot length of black horsehair that would reach halfway down his back when he donned it. “What’s with the tail?” Val asked.
“Ridgemont has a medieval man’s taste for the gaudy.”
He took the helm in his gauntleted hands and settled it on top of the arming cap he already wore. The cap’s thick padding would protect him -- at least in part -- if Ridgemont landed a blow on the helm.
His assistant handed him his shield, a kite-like affair made of a high-tech alloy. Painted on its smooth, silver surface was a wolf done in medieval style and trimmed in black and red. Last, the attendant handed over the sword.
“I can’t believe we’re supposed to fight in all this stuff,” Val thought, as he turned and moved back toward Ridgemont. She was surprised he didn’t clank.
“Just follow my lead. I’ll keep us alive.”
“You’d better. I’ve just broken you in.”
Ridgemont was dressed in black armor identical to Cade’s, except for the dragon that curled on his shield. Val was once again conscious of the waves of power and evil that rolled off him. Her anxiety spiraled.
“The power doesn’t matter,” Cade told her. “He can still die.”
But could they kill him? And what about that damn dream?
Hastily she suppressed that memory and concentrated on Cade, feeling what he felt as he followed Ridgemont to the center of the arena. He had very little fear for himself, and he refused to focus on his fear for her, both to avoid frightening her and to keep his mind on the job at hand. His entire being was focused on one goal: killing Ridgemont, even if he died doing it. Not for revenge or even for honor, but because it was the only way to keep Val safe.
“You listen to me, Cade McKinnon,” she told him, galvanized by his fatalism. “You are going to survive this. You just damn well make up your mind to that, because I need you, and I’m not giving you up.”
Ridgemont turned to face them in the center of the arena. His eyes flicked over Cade’s face through the transparent visor, and his lips twitched. “It does my heart good to see all that grim, manly determination,” he rumbled. “I didn’t spend fourteen decades torturing you for nothing. As for you, girl -- don’t disappoint me.”
Forever Kisses Volume 1 Page 28
