“I already had this conversation with Kaitlin last night.” Cassie sighed. “We’ll find a way, but you can’t tell me she’s happy there.”
No, Matthew could honestly not tell Cassie that her friend was happy here. In fact, Kaitlin was scared. Scared for her son, for his death merely delayed by a few years, and for herself. She was lonely here, and for some reason she didn’t feel good about making friends. Because they all had magic and she didn’t? Because she had lost some essential spark? He didn’t know, but he also couldn’t spend time finding out. It was too great a risk.
“What I’m doing here might put Kaitlin in danger,” Matthew said, giving her a half truth.
“Why are you so reluctant?” Cassie asked, far too perceptive as usual. She had that in common with Kaitlin. “This is a simple favor I’m asking. When you leave, take her with you. Are you afraid of her or something?”
“No.” But even as Matthew said it, he knew it for a lie. She was, in fact, his worst nightmare: A woman he couldn’t control.
Chapter 15
KAITLIN HAD TROUBLE CONCENTRATING AT WORK the next day. She kept looking over her shoulder, more than half expecting to see Matthew there. She kept thinking about things... things she hated about herself. Things she tried not to think about. It was the spotted elephant problem: The more you try not to think about something, the harder it is not to think about.
Everyone noticed. Drey, the empath, looked particularly alarmed every time she came into the kitchen, as if she radiated some kind of plague that might be catching. From what she knew of empaths, that might be true.
Don’t think... don’t think... don’t think...
You’re a slut, just like your mom.
To make matters worse, the one friend Kaitlin had sort of made in this place suddenly grew hostile when she spotted Kaitlin.
“I heard you were with Mad Matt last night,” Janelle said in a tone that suggested Kaitlin had engaged in a public orgy.
“We’re from the same town. He wanted to talk.”
“Alexander took you in,” Janelle said. “He didn’t have to do that. You don’t even belong here.”
Kaitlin felt so much as if she’d received a slap in the face that she had to force herself not to touch her stinging cheek. Not that she hadn’t known the truth of Janelle’s words all along, but hearing them put out there like that, right in the open... Was this going to be the rest of her life?
“I didn’t... I don’t like him,” Kaitlin said. “He hurt a friend of mine.” Who is now, no matter what she says about why, working with the guy. No wonder Kaitlin had been confused at first.
A crowd had begun to form around them, giving Kaitlin the feeling of being penned in. She glanced from person to person, noticing Drey, several of the cooks, the serving staff, and even Queen Beth, who normally had as little to do with Janelle as possible.
“What did he say?” Janelle demanded. “What did he want?”
“I – he – we–” What could she say? If she were truly loyal to these people and this place then she would tell them what she knew, wouldn’t she? Matthew’s telepathy was clearly not an open secret, even if his being a mind mage was generally known. They could use that information, and Kaitlin could make herself more important by giving it to them. Perhaps even important enough to begin to belong, especially if she also mentioned that she could see through illusions. So why was she hesitating?
Hideyuki didn’t think she should tell anyone she could see through illusions. For some reason, he had been warning her against it from the start. What did he know that she didn’t?
Kaitlin straightened her spine and glared at Janelle, deciding that whatever happened, she could not let this woman scare her. “Back off. It’s not a crime to talk to someone. Alexander invited him here, didn’t he? Maybe you should ask him why he did that instead of bothering me. All I did was go for a walk.”
Janelle sneered, but before she had a chance to say anything else, the kitchen supervisor came over to demand to know what was going on. Slowly, the crowd dispersed and Kaitlin got back to work. But her heart continued to jump at every odd sound all afternoon, and when she got off work she did not go to the nursery to pick up her son right away; instead, she headed downstairs to the bottom floor – the tenth floor – home of compound security and the Hunters Guild.
Kaitlin had been down here a couple of times, but the stares she received from the reception counter always unnerved her. She was sure that at least one of the people working the counter was an empath and that he was sizing her up as a possible threat. At the moment, he probably thought she was – anxiety was washing off of her in tidal waves that any idiot could see, empath or not. What had happened to her hard-won composure? Hadn’t she been hiding her true feelings since the tender age of twelve? She’d let it slip these past few weeks at the compound, but after one night with a telepath she felt utterly exposed.
“I need to see Hideyuki,” Kaitlin said to the receptionist she was pretty sure was not an empath.
“Is he expecting you?”
“No.” And she had never gone to see him on her own, but who else could she trust?
“Just a minute.” The receptionist picked up the phone, pressed a series of numbers, then spoke in hushed tones with someone on the other end. When she put down the receiver she looked up and gestured to some hard plastic chairs along one wall of the sparsely furnished room. “He’ll be out in a minute. Have a seat.”
Kaitlin didn’t sit, but luckily she also didn’t have to wait long. Within two minutes Hideyuki was there, appearing through a door that led to both the security offices and Hunters Guild. There were also training facilities and, somewhere beyond that maze, a prison holding some of the most dangerous (and challenging to hold) criminals in the world.
“Let’s take a walk,” Hideyuki said as soon as he saw her. He didn’t even offer a greeting or ask for an explanation, though he did offer an arm.
Kaitlin stared at it, not sure what to do with the gesture. An arm? What did that mean? No one offered her an arm. She put her hand on it gingerly, wondering if Hideyuki’s intentions were not as honorable as she had first supposed. She was, after all, a terrible judge of character. But for the moment, at least, he did nothing except to allow the contact. He didn’t even touch her himself, only continued to hold his arm out for her to take as she would.
His arm was solid muscle. This shouldn’t have surprised her, despite the fact that he was at least forty-five, since she had spent a year with a vampire hunter (turned vampire) and knew that above all else they were blocks of solid muscle. She had actually lost interest in the type, now preferring fit but thin. More like Matthew.
He didn’t ask her questions. He didn’t even say a word as they rode the elevator up to ground level, then out into the bright afternoon sunshine. Kaitlin blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the natural light. She’d definitely been too long inside. Last night she had scarcely noticed. Then again, it had been cloudier and the sun further west in the sky. Now, at three in the afternoon, it was high overhead. The day was hot and humid, and it smelled of newly mowed grass and fresh flowers. Kaitlin drew in a deep lungful of the smell of freedom, then let it out again slowly, knowing it wasn’t so easy.
“I keep thinking I can trust you,” Kaitlin said, her hand tightening slightly on his arm. “Is that true?”
Hideyuki didn’t answer right away. First, he led her from the building, along the walking trail, and then off the beaten path into a small copse of trees. There wasn’t any formal seating there, but a large boulder looked as if it had been used for the purpose many a time. Hideyuki walked her to that bolder, then urged her to sit. When she did, he took a step backward.
“I told you not to trust the hunters,” Hideyuki said finally.
“Including you?”
“Maybe.” He looked around. “I so
metimes think the trees have ears. I know the walls do.”
“Matthew didn’t think it would be as easy to spy on us outside,” Kaitlin said, remembering. Of course, she had taken his word for that.
“So others have said. Still...” He shrugged. “I’m sorry about Eli pushing you the other night. I’ve sent him and his friend on a mission. They won’t bother you again.”
“Thanks.” Although honestly, Kaitlin had nearly forgotten them.
“The hunters are interested in you. Your son is powerful; more than one has asked aloud if you could produce another such prodigy.”
Kaitlin frowned. “Wait. Is that what they were after the other night?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous. I would never–”
“You did, though.”
Kaitlin wanted to reply with indignation, but how could she? He was right. She could protest all she wanted, but she had, in fact, gotten pregnant after a one-night stand with a vampire hunter. Who was to say she wouldn’t do it again? It seemed absurd to her now, but only because she wasn’t exactly the same person she had been. Jay had seen to that, among other things.
“I’ve warned them off, but Hunter One is encouraging it.”
“What about Alexander?” Kaitlin asked.
“He thinks one of us should marry you.”
“Cassie said that was his solution to everything.” Kaitlin smiled, thinking of her friend.
“Not everything, but he’s definitely in favor of what he calls ‘a family core.’”
“I guess the hunters aren’t interested in making an honest woman of me,” Kaitlin said lightly, though actually the thought stung a bit. “Is that why I shouldn’t trust them?”
Hideyuki turned away from her, telling her without words that this wasn’t exactly it, though it was part of it.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Am I in danger here?”
“Maybe. You’re an enigma. You escaped the most powerful vampire in the world when many hunters have not. People are asking how, when you’re not special in the least.”
Kaitlin’s face went red, but she couldn’t deny the charge.
“You are special, though, aren’t you? You don’t see what’s on the walls.”
“There’s nothing on the walls.”
“So you say. Tell me, how did you break the thrall? You weren’t on the anti-venom potion, so you must have been under their thrall.”
Kaitlin’s mind drifted back to the terrifying night when she’d fled for her life. “I’m immune. Xavier said I was immune.”
“To the venom, or to the thrall?” Hideyuki asked.
Kaitlin had to think for a moment. The venom itself did three things – it coagulated the wound so a vampire’s victim wouldn’t bleed out, it turned its victim into a vampire, and it made them a thrall to the vampire. “Only the thrall,” Kaitlin said in realization. “Is that weird?”
“It’s unusual, but it suggests you have a natural immunity to mind magic.”
Kaitlin shook her head. “I know that’s not true. The thrall worked on me for months, and before that, Matthew did something to me.”
“So what happened?” Hideyuki asked.
“Xavier?” Kaitlin made it a question, but it was the only thing that made sense. “Could he have done something to me?”
“Xavier isn’t just a vampire; he’s a powerful sorcerer. That’s why we’ve had so much trouble with him.”
“But I’m safe here,” Kaitlin said, or maybe pleaded. “Aren’t I?”
He didn’t reply.
“Am I in danger?” she asked. Then, her heart pounding, she added. “Is my son?”
“Your son is almost definitely going to die.” He did not turn to face her, and there was a hollow, aching quality to his voice. “I’ve trained so many hunters in the last decade, then watched them, one by one, go out into the field to die. I trained Jason, did you know?”
“No.” Although if she had thought about it, she could have guessed.
“Our leaders keep telling us we’re winning the war against vampires, that we’re close to exterminating them. They cite our high kill rates. And we do. We’ve killed thousands and thousands of vampires in the past decade. We kill them far more often than they kill us. I’ve trained them that well, at least.”
“Xavier said there are more vampires today than there have ever been before,” Kaitlin found herself saying.
“Xavier said that?” Hideyuki still didn’t turn around. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, although I think he’s one of the most evil creatures on the planet. I met him once, thirty years ago, on my very first assignment.”
“You fought him?”
“I fought with him,” He corrected. “We did a raid on a warehouse where a hundred unchecked vamps were nesting. According to him, they were insane, they didn’t rise well, and they needed to be put down before they exposed the entire vampire world. But that night, as I staked my share of freshly-turned vamps who weren’t experienced enough to beat me, I saw him in combat with someone far older and more experienced, someone I believe was a rival to him. Xavier was injured in that fight and needed to replenish his reserves; I saw him rip the throat out of a man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He said he couldn’t help it, that he had been beyond reason, but I didn’t believe him.”
Silence fell between them. Kaitlin remembered a similar incident, and thought she knew exactly what Hideyuki meant, she didn’t share. She didn’t even want to remember.
“They’re not human anymore,” Hideyuki said in a low voice. “I don’t know what they are. I’ve been fighting them for thirty years, or training others to do the same, and I don’t know what they are. The company line is that they’re human bodies inhabited by demonic souls, but I think that’s just us trying to understand.”
“Jason seemed human at first,” Kaitlin whispered. “He became less human as time went on, almost like the demon inside of him was growing up and putting distance between itself and the human memories it first encountered.”
“That could be it. We may never know.”
“Xavier said the reason the hunters are losing this fight is that they killed off all the elders,” Kaitlin said, hoping Hideyuki would refute the claim. Hoping Hideyuki had a plan to kill the monster at her door.
“Yes, I think so too.”
Kaitlin bowed her head, letting a few loose strands of golden hair fall into her face. She pushed them away angrily; she hadn’t found an ally in Hideyuki after all.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said softly.
“How else can I feel? My freedom depends upon his death, and now you’re saying everyone is better off with him alive – everyone but me.”
Hideyuki hesitated. “I’m not sure that’s what I’m saying. Not exactly. But what the hunters are doing isn’t controlling the vampire population, and they haven’t killed Xavier either.”
“So then why are they doing it?”
“Officially or unofficially?”
“Let’s start with officially.”
“Officially, we’re doing it because all vampires are evil and need to be wiped from the face of the planet. Alexander has rallied a call to arms against them, and recruited more hunters to the cause than ever before. With his help, we’ve become more effective, and he’s given us real hope that this is a war we can win.”
“Unofficially?” Kaitlin asked.
“I think Alexander’s doing it because it’s politically expedient. But Mr. Quinn is doing it because Xavier refused to make him immortal.”
“You mean turn him?” Kaitlin gasped. “I’m not sure it’s really immortality.”
“Neither am I, but our current Hunter One would hardly be the first to spend his life fighting vampires then retire as one of the
m. It’s almost a tradition, and it has kept us connected to the vampire leadership, which helped us control the population. A connection, I might add, that he used to start terminating the vampire leadership when he took over.”
“Wow. I had no idea. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping to make Hunter One myself, but that may be many years still, and I’m not the only one in line for the position. In the meantime, your son may grow up and die under my watch because we’re fighting a war we can’t win.”
Kaitlin stared at the large, solid man for a minute. Or at least, she stared at his back. He still wouldn’t show her his face and she suddenly felt a strong urge to go up to him and lay a comforting arm on his back. He jerked slightly at the touch, then relaxed against her.
“Have you ever thought of leaving and forming your own guild?” Kaitlin asked.
He laughed. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’d be fighting each other and the vampires. I’m not sure that’s what we want.”
“And this is? Are you really just going to wait around for an old man to die?”
Hideyuki scowled, finally turning around and dislodging Kaitlin’s hand from his back in the process. “It’s not that easy.”
“It never is.” Kaitlin stepped away, giving him the space he seemed to need, and thought back to her own problems. For a moment she had been caught up in his, but reality had a way of crashing back down hard. And whatever else she had learned, she knew also that her worst fears were real: Staying here was a slow death sentence for her son. But could she return and put everyone she loved at risk?
Chapter 16
MATTHEW FELT WELL ENOUGH THE NEXT morning that he could no longer ignore the many invitations he continued to receive from Alexander, both with him and with his inner circle. Besides, he had a job to do and it was time he got to it. So, pushing his concerns about Kaitlin aside for the moment, he met Alexander in his luxurious office once again to play another round of mental tug-of-war.
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