Car horns blasted at her from all directions, telling her what she already knew – that she was driving recklessly. And with a baby in the back, no less. A lot of good this escape would do if she wrecked the car and killed Jay. But if they didn’t escape...
Jay started to fuss. Kaitlin slowed down a little bit so she could keep a better eye on the road, but she didn’t stop as she reached into the diaper bag she’d flung into the passenger seat and grabbed one of the prepared bottles. She passed it back to Jay, who took it and started gulping down the fluid greedily. As soon as he’d taken the bottle, she sped up again.
The car horns started their angry chastisement once again. Each one seemed to say you’re a terrible mother. They were right. She was a terrible mother. What kind of mother took her newborn child and ran off with a vampire? Even if he had been the baby’s father before he’d turned? Now look at her. On the run from those same vampires, looking over her shoulder every few seconds, expecting to see them in the rearview mirror.
Eighty miles. Still not enough...
The road in front of her blurred slightly as a wave of dizziness washed over her. She clutched the steering wheel with white knuckles, struggling to see the dashed lines in front of her. A semi roared past, blaring angry insults at her. She turned up the volume on the music to drown it out. To drown everything out.
She was twenty-three years old and this was what she had to show for her life. It felt like she’d been making one bad decision after another, especially where men were concerned. She kept looking for her knight in shining armor, but she only found toads – and they didn’t turn into princes after she kissed them. Maybe that only worked for princesses.
Jay stopped fussing. Kaitlin didn’t dare reach back and take the bottle away, not at these speeds, and she didn’t dare slow down. Jay was over a year old now; he shouldn’t even be using a bottle anymore, said the experts on babies. She should have switched him to a sippy cup and maybe started training him to drink from an open cup. Of course, she should have kept nursing him past six months. She’d failed at that too.
Her best friend, Cassie, would never have failed at any of it. Kaitlin hadn’t seen Cassie since she’d run away with Jason, and there had been scant few e-mails exchanged between them. Enough that she’d thought she could contact her friend about taking Jay, but not enough that she really knew what was going on in Cassie’s life, or vice versa. But Cassie had given birth back in December, so her baby would be almost five months old by now. At five months of age, Kaitlin had been zombie mom, victim of a hypnotic thrall resulting from a vampire taking her blood and leaving behind venom. The whole time period was a bit of a blur, actually.
What was Cassie doing now? Cassie had found her prince, as Kaitlin had always known she would. It was strange, but Kaitlin both loved and resented her best friend at the exact same time. Cassie had never been anything but a true friend to her, but Cassie, for all her complaints about not having magic powers, lived a charmed life in a magical world. Kaitlin thought at first that Cassie had made a mistake when she’d gone for Evan instead of Braden, but even that had worked out.
It wouldn’t have worked out for me, Kaitlin thought bitterly. Sometimes I think I turn the men into frogs.
The steering wheel began to shake and Kaitlin realized she’d just accidentally driven onto the shoulder. She steered back onto the road, breathing heavily, again checking her rearview mirror. She wished she could see Jay to make sure he was okay, but he was facing the back in his infant carrier. She settled for turning off the radio for a moment so she could hear the sound of his breathing. There it was, soft and steady. He’d finally fallen asleep.
Hours more to go to reach Pennsylvania, and then what? Kaitlin didn’t know exactly where Alexander’s compound was. She’d have to stop to make a phone call, but not yet, not until she crossed the state line.
It began to rain. Not a hard driving rain but a soft drizzle so light that it almost wasn’t worth turning the windshield wipers on. She had to find the wipers in the unfamiliar car after a few minutes, though, and then she had to adjust them manually every few minutes.
The drops of rain on the window weren’t helping her focus. She felt dizzy, and the world blurred in front of her.
One hundred twenty miles. They couldn’t get her on foot now... probably. They would have to drive. But they still had the blood. And there were still hundreds of miles to go.
* * *
Kaitlin was barely conscious when she stopped at a gas station just past the Pennsylvania border. It was one in the morning; she’d made good time, but it was a miracle she hadn’t gotten into a wreck. She felt a numb, tingling sensation all over, her stomach ached with nausea, and she could barely see through her blurred vision.
The lateness of the hour and the relative emptiness of the roads was probably her saving grace. She prayed that her destination wasn’t much further. Once she arrived, once she placed Jay into the hands of people who would watch out for him, she could collapse and sleep for a week. She hoped not forever.
Fumbling with the old-fashioned pay phone on the corner, blinking against the cool drizzle, Kaitlin got an operator on the line and made a collect call to the one person she’d wanted to speak to for months. Cassie didn’t answer until the fourth ring, long enough that Kaitlin worried she wouldn’t answer at all. But she didn’t hesitate to accept the charges.
“Kaitlin?” Cassie asked. “My God, I haven’t heard anything from you since you left. I thought you were dead.”
“What are you talking about? I e-mailed you. You e-mailed me.”
There was dead silence on the other end of the line.
“But you wrote back.” Kaitlin felt an icy sensation run down her spine.
“Someone wrote back,” Cassie said slowly. “It wasn’t me. Kaitlin, where are you? Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Come back to Eagle Rock. I’ll help you.”
“No.” She wished she could. “No, it’s not safe there. Jason said he has my blood. He can find me anywhere. And Evan can’t fight vampires.” She paused, hoping that Cassie would deny the charge, but the line stayed silent. “The only safe place for me is with the hunters. I think they’ll take us in because of Jay, but I don’t know where they are.”
“With Alexander.”
“Yes, but where?”
“Kaitlin, Alexander has been doing some shady things. I don’t think–”
“I don’t care about politics!” Kaitlin took a deep breath, the world swam in front of her and she leaned heavily against the wall. “Please, Cassie. I’m a few quarts low on blood right now. I just... I have to get Jay safe. I’m in Pennsylvania now. Where is Alexander?”
“There aren’t GPS coordinates for the place,” Cassie said. “But I can tell you how to get there.” She described a route that would take Kaitlin off the highway and down several rural roads. “There are heavy illusions on the place so no one can find it. Most people passing by will only see a rundown gas station. If you turn into the gas station, you’ll see what looks like a sprawling one-story office building and the entrance to an underground parking garage. The office building is actually the top floor of the underground fortress. The parking garage is actually a parking garage. Once you turn in there, the wards will keep the vampires out.”
“All right,” Kaitlin said, hoping she would be able to remember all that. She hadn’t brought anything like a piece of paper.
“I’ll tell Alexander you’re coming. Call me when you get there.” It wasn’t a request.
“Yes. Of course.” Kaitlin hung up.
She nearly fell twice on the way back to the car. She fumbled it open, slid inside, and spent a minute resting her head against the steering wheel. She could not give up now. Not now. She was so close!
Yet she could feel herself slipping away. She was running on empty �
�� literally. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there with her head pressed against the wheel, but the next thing she knew she was being startled awake by a cry from the backseat.
Kaitlin jumped. She reached around, patted Jay, then turned the key in the ignition. When the dashboard lit up she saw the digital clock, which read 3:34.
She’d fallen asleep! Kaitlin spun her head left and right, expecting Jason to pounce on her. Knowing he would. How could he not? Pushing her foot into the accelerator she peeled rubber out of the twenty-four hour gas station and swerved back onto the highway, coming inches from hitting another car.
The race was on. She felt it. She pushed the accelerator down as far as it would go, only slowing when she had to leave the interstate. She looked in the rearview mirror almost as much as she looked through the front windshield. There was a car behind her. Had she seen it before? Was it following her?
She found the two-lane rural highway but did not slow down. Jay was screaming in the seat behind her now, and from the smell of it he had reason to complain. But she didn’t stop. Diaper rash would heal. But each shrill cry from his little lungs beat against her conscience. Are you going to just leave me sitting in filth?
The second highway marker came into view faster than she expected. She passed it slightly and ended up doing a sort of 270-degree turn to get onto it, nearly taking off the bumper of the car that had been following her.
Not far now. It was only three miles down this road, according to Cassie.
Check the rearview mirror... the car she’d nearly run into was now doing its own version of the 270-degree turn. Her stomach twisted. Bile rose in her throat, stinging as she fought to gulp it down.
Shit. Not now. Not now. Please God, not now!
There was no one else on the road except her and whoever was behind her. She floored it, turned off the radio so she could concentrate, then instantly regretted that decision. Jay’s cries weren’t exactly soothing.
She searched the right-hand side of the road for that abandoned gas station. If it didn’t come soon, this was all over. Trees. Trees. Barn. Fence. A sprawling one-story office building...
Wait, wasn’t that what she was supposed to see after she turned into the abandoned gas station? Maybe she’d misheard. At any rate, if this wasn’t it, she didn’t think she’d make it another half mile. The car behind her kissed her bumper and it was Kaitlin’s turn to scream.
She didn’t slow down. She just veered across the manicured grass lawn to get to the driveway leading to the front door and then, just past it, to the underground garage. The moment she breached the threshold the car behind her fell away. Then, with a squeal of brakes, it rolled to a stop.
Kaitlin hit the brakes too. She couldn’t race into a parking garage going over a hundred miles per hour. And anyway she was here. She was through whatever magic kept the vampires out. She hoped.
Looking behind her one last time, she spotted three figures getting out of the car that had now stopped so that it blocked the entrance to the building. Two were male, one female. All had glowing yellow eyes.
Chapter 4
JASON FELT A SURGE OF TRIUMPH when the car disappeared into the underground garage without crashing. Had he still been human, he might have felt relief. He remembered enough about being Jason to know that’s how Jason would have felt. Jason was dead; he was something else, but not knowing what and not having a better name in mind, he continued to think of himself as Jason.
“They took the bait,” Xavier said. “Now we wait and see if your scheme works.”
His scheme had already worked; he’d gotten Jay away from the monster beside him. If it had taken scaring Kaitlin witless to do so, that was a small price to pay. The thought of spending eternity with the fanciful woman hadn’t appealed to him much since the day he’d turned, but eternity with the flesh of his flesh... now that intrigued him. Not yet. The boy was too young. Drooled a lot. Soiled himself. But in a few years he could have an ally in his flesh child. Maybe then he could rid himself of Xavier once and for all.
But first he had to suffer yet another drive with the evil creature.
“I’m hungry,” said the nanny as soon as they had retreated back inside the car.
“Jason will take you on a hunt as soon as we reach the safehouse. Won’t you, Jason?” Xavier gave him something that would have passed for a smile if the creature could smile.
“Of course,” Jason replied. He didn’t want to. He didn’t think Xavier should have turned the woman. He, who spoke of the irresponsibility of young vampires and the exploding vampire population, had turned a woman to “teach Kaitlin a lesson.” What that lesson could be, Jason had no idea.
He hid his feelings during the trip to the safehouse – this one not an hour away from Alexander’s compound. A gutsy move on Xavier’s part, but so far the guild hadn’t come knocking on that particular door. At least as far as their surveillance could tell. Xavier himself had yet to stay there.
The two-story home had a log-cabin facade and was set against a backdrop of evergreen trees. If it weren’t the middle of June, it would have been the perfect backdrop for a Christmas story. His flesh host had fond memories of helping his mom choose the perfect Christmas tree each year. Even as a young child, he’d been able to help her drag it home and set it up.
Xavier climbed out of the car, leaving it running, a clear sign that he expected Jason to take the nanny out hunting before he so much as unpacked. Fine. He found it easier to think away from Xavier’s influence anyway.
While Jason settled into the driver’s seat, the nanny (Susan? Sally? Sarah?) took the vacant passenger seat. Within minutes they were back on the highway, aiming for the nearest pocket of civilization. It was too close to sunrise to venture further afield, although they would have to be careful about hunting too close to their home, especially with The Hunters Guild so close.
“I’m so hungry,” the nanny said. “Is it always like this?”
“No.” Only in the beginning, when a feeding frenzy drove everything else from their minds. Or so Jason had experienced. Xavier said all vampires went through it, but Xavier lied about too many things. Big things. Little things. He couldn’t seem to help it.
“I killed a man tonight,” she said. “Barely a man. He was out with his grandfather. I wanted to take the grandfather instead, but Xavier beat me to him.”
That sounded like Xavier. Why should we take the dregs of humanity for our sustenance?
“He let the grandfather live.”
That sounded like Xavier too. If his flesh host hadn’t been so determined to kill his father before anyone else, Xavier would have had him drain his cousin Cassie dry. His flesh host liked Cassie. Jason didn’t have a strong opinion about her now, but it seemed... wasteful? Unnecessary? Evil?
Vampires were evil. His flesh host had believed that to his dying day. Jason didn’t know what the word meant anymore.
“Do I have to kill this time?” the nanny asked.
“Are you as frenzied as you were before?”
“No.”
“Then probably not. Just a matter of stopping. Then tell the donor to forget he ever saw you.”
“So why don’t vampires do that more often instead of killing people?”
“I’ve only killed one person. And he needed to die.”
The nanny was silent for a while. Good. Jason’s mind was beginning to clear the further he drove from Xavier’s influence and he didn’t want it cluttered up with questions. Thirty minutes later, with maybe an hour to go before sunrise, he came to the first in a small cluster of homes. From his trip through here an hour or so ago, he recalled a shabby main street, closed for the night save for a single gas station, a mile or so down the road. But he didn’t need to go that far. If he stopped outside of town and ran the rest of the way, no one would see the car swinging back through.
He parked half a mile from the first house and about a mile from the gas station, then urged the nanny to follow at a run. She started out okay, but only a few seconds later he heard a loud thud and saw that she’d run smack into a tree. Her face was a mass of cuts and bruises that would heal in a matter of hours, but the tree – a white pine, he thought – wasn’t nearly so lucky.
It was evidence of their presence here tonight. If they had more time he’d turn back, move on down the road, and find the next settlement. But the sun would rise too soon.
“Clumsy,” Jason snapped as he raced back to her position.
“I’ve never run at super speed before,” she snapped back. “Were you Mr. Grace the first time?”
Jason couldn’t recall the first time. His flesh host had been moving at super speeds longer than he could remember. Still, she was a menace. “If you can’t run, what good are you? I’m not sure why Xavier let you turn.”
She turned her back to him and her shoulders shook. Was she crying? Did vampire cry?
“What?” Jason snapped. He snapped more often now that he was a vampire. It seemed the prospect of eternal life had made him less patient.
“End it then!” She turned around and instead of tears, he saw yellow fire in her eyes. “Go on. End it! I didn’t want to become this... this... what the hell am I?”
Jason had no idea. It was one of the things he hated most about Xavier. The older vampire knew, and wouldn’t say. He didn’t think the hunters had it exactly right – the idea that a demon had possessed his flesh host to reanimate it felt more like superstition than truth – but he wasn’t Jason. It was more like the flesh host had given birth to something else; the longer he lived, the less like the flesh host he became and the more like whatever else now grew inside him.
In two hundred years would he be as inhuman as Xavier?
“Well, what am I?”
“A vampire.”
“Which is what? A term for a collection of pop culture references? What am I?”
Kaitlin's Tale Page 4
