by Kate Martin
The dagger stared at me from its cushioned seat, making me afraid to touch it. “What is this for?”
“For you.”
“Why?”
“Because it appears that life is not going to be as safe as it has been, and sometimes even vampires need more than just their hands.”
Maybe I should have pried. “You want me to use this thing?”
“If it becomes necessary, yes.” He lifted the weapon from the box and drew it from its sheath. The blade was just as polished as its covering, and the edges gleamed in the sunlight. I imagined drawing the blade along my hand, and watching my flesh part as though it were as soft as butter, blood pooling around the wound immediately.
I shuddered when the reality of that thought hit me. It scared me. A normal person shouldn’t have thoughts like that.
Damned bloodlust.
“What good is a blade going to do me? I can’t stab anyone to death, and that thing is certainly not big enough to hack off any limbs.”
He held the dagger where I could reach it, his other hand pointing to the emerald that sat at the cross of the guard and the hilt. “Press this.”
Oh god. Now I had images of sentient transforming devices and other science fiction type things running through my mind. I didn’t want to press it. It was probably going to go all freaky and fold out into a giant vampire killing robot or something. No, thank you.
“You do it.”
Rhys raised an eyebrow. “It won’t bite.”
“That’s what you want me to think.”
He rolled his eyes, grabbed my hand and pressed my finger down over the stone.
Two thin blades shot out from the hilt, extending halfway up the blade. They sat perfectly against the main blade, looking as though they had been there the whole time.
They were gold.
Heat radiated from them. I recoiled.
“If you stab a vampire with this, it will impair their ability to heal and give you the advantage.”
I continued to lean away from the offensive thing. “It’s gold. It’s going to do as much damage to me as it will to whoever gets the wrong end of it.”
“The gold retracts for that reason. You’ll be safe from it. Don’t release it until you’re ready to strike.” He pressed the emerald again and the gold disappeared back into the hilt. “It took us years to come up with a working model, but this is the result. And it will help keep you safe.” He offered it to me, hilt first.
“I’m really supposed to keep this with me at all times?”
“Yes. It has a strap, for your thigh. We can get you others as well, if you’d prefer.”
I wasn’t squeamish around weapons—my father had been in the military my entire life, weapons were a part of my everyday—but I had never actually owned one, and the thought was . . . unsettling.
Maybe I was just sad that it had come to this. I had always hoped to see peace in my life, but one war had given way to another, and I found myself at the center of it.
I wrapped my hand around the hilt and took it from Rhys. It felt wrong, odd. Like something foreign had replaced my fingers.
I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “It will be easier with practice. It will feel natural,” Rhys said.
“If you say so. Does this mean more lessons with Cade?”
“You had lessons anyway.”
“Yes, but now he’s going to go all stabbity on me.”
“Stabbity?”
“It’s a word.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“Sometimes you just have to be wrong, Rhys,” I said, setting the dagger back within the box. “You’ll figure it out.”
“I truly hope that my being wrong about a made-up word is the least of our worries.”
He’d gone all distant and dark again. I kept promising my past selves that I would do what I could to prevent that, but so far I hadn’t had much luck. “Is something wrong? What did you and Cade talk about, really?”
“It’s nothing. The Council is just being difficult. Julius has gone to discuss matters with them.”
He wasn’t lying, I could tell, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “That’s it? Nothing bad?”
“There are rumors that the VFO has something planned. We need to be prepared.”
“Prepared?” I patted the box in my lap. “Is that what this is?”
“Yes.”
I set the box on the floor by our feet. “Well then, we’re prepared. Now what?”
“Now,” he said, every one of his five hundred years wearing on his voice, “I think I’d like to get some sleep.”
Strike three. Something was definitely going on. Rhys was old enough that sleep was not a daily thing for him. He lay down, eyes closed before he even hit the pillow, one arm thrown over his face. I was starting to recognize these little signs, not from my own personal experience, but from the memories that were returning. I wanted to badger him into telling me what had him so worn down, but Eva told me to let him be. He would explain when he could, or if it was something I really needed to know. His life in the vampire world was like an iceberg, and there was still so much I had yet to see.
Leaning over him, I kissed him, pleased when he proved awake enough to respond. Then I settled half on him, tucking my head under his chin. Sleep had just begun to close in for me again, when I remembered I hadn’t really had the chance to speak to him about other more mundane things.
“Hey, Rhys.”
“Hm?”
“Still awake?”
“Hm.”
I took that as a yes. “My grandmother called me today.” His chest rose and fell beneath my head, but that was evidence enough that he hadn’t fallen asleep. “She’s the head of this big company in New York, and they have a big company gala every year. She wants me to go.”
“You should go,” he said sleepily, one arm curling around my back. “Family is important. They won’t always be around.”
I didn’t want to think about that. “I told her I was going to bring my own date.”
“Hm.”
Oh, goodie. Back to the non-committals. “I trust an old and worldly vampire such as you owns a tux.”
“Of course I own a—wait, what?”
I laughed. His whole manner had changed. Where he had been half-asleep, he was now wide awake. “That’s what gets your attention?” I said, pushing myself up on an elbow so I could see his shocked face.
“What did I just agree to?”
“Accompanying me to a fancy gala. I’m sure you’ve been to plenty before.”
“Not in a long time.” I could see the ghost in his eyes. Was it mine? I thought back to what I had seen while I slept. Eva. New York. A high society party that ended in blood and revelations. Suddenly the arrival of the memory didn’t seem so random. My grandmother’s plans were a little closer to the past than I had realized.
“Do you not want to go?”
“No,” he shook his head a little, as if that would clear away the past. “I’d love to take you.”
“Really?” Sometimes it seemed like all my past did was hurt him. Most days I wanted nothing more than to remember everything so I could better keep it where it belonged—in the past.
“Of course, really.”
“Not too close to . . . other things?”
“You mean Eva.”
“I remember more about her every day. Just tonight I was her, seeing you as a vampire for the first time. I know her life is the most difficult for you to think about, and she lived in New York. Same as my grandmother.”
“I’ll be all right,” he said, and I almost believed him when he smiled. “You just caught me by surprise. I was nearly asleep.”
“Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh? How?”
A lovely distraction seemed in order. And nothing distracted me better than Rhys himself. Rolling slightly, I craned my neck and kissed his exposed throat while I slipped my hand beneath his shirt.
He didn
’t immediately stop me, so I took my time trailing kisses along his neck and jaw, all the while mapping out the hard plains of his chest with my hand. He slid his hand under my tank, tracing my spine and pulling me closer. I shifted and put one leg on either side of him, pushing his shirt up out of my way completely and kissing him full on the mouth. I parted my lips when he did, and felt his fangs lengthening. My own responded in kind.
He sat up, never breaking our kiss, and I ended up in his lap. I pressed against him, holding the back of his neck just in case he thought of trying to get away. A precaution only. Something told me he wouldn’t try. Not this time. My nerves jumped and shivered, while butterflies fluttered away in my stomach.
His lips left mine, traveling along my jaw and down my throat. My heart thumped hard against my chest. My fingers trembled as I ran them through his hair.
Then I was on my back, head against the pillows, and Rhys was kissing his way down my neck, over my shoulders and along my collarbone.
A sharp chill slashed at the back of my neck and I gasped, reaching for the spot as though I had actually been attacked.
Rhys stopped.
I waited for the horrible sensation to pass, but it remained. That sense of doom, of dread.
“What is it?” He grabbed my free hand and pulled me up until I sat, leaning forward against his body.
I rubbed and rubbed at my neck trying to drive away the chill. “That feeling. Something’s wrong. Something’s going to happen.”
Rhys drew my hand away from my neck—probably afraid I would hurt myself since I was rubbing so hard. He put his hand there instead and ran his fingers in soothing circles. The feeling refused to go away. “Can you focus on it? What does it mean?”
“I don’t know.” I pressed my face against his shoulder. Nothing became clearer, only the sick feeling in my stomach.
A bloodcurdling scream reverberated through the air. Not from inside the house, though.
It had come from the street.
Chapter Four: Failed Army
We didn’t make it out of my room to investigate before my door burst open.
“Rhys.” Cade’s voice sounded darker than usual, sharper. He didn’t say anything else, but I felt Rhys nod and heard Cade leave.
I still hoped the discomfort would go away, and now praying it would recede before Rhys left me. Because as sure as I knew something had gone deadly wrong, I knew he was about to go chasing after it. I clutched at him when he moved. “Wait. What’s going on?”
“It’s the VFO,” he said, looking torn between rushing off and staying. “I need to go.”
“I can help.”
“No.”
He kissed me and disappeared.
I told the alarms in my head to leave me alone and stumbled after him. The banister cracked under the pressure of my grip and I stopped just short of the bottom step.
The front door was open wide, and the warm night air flooded in against the air conditioning. More screams echoed the first now, and thunder rumbled in the distance after the bright flashes of lightning that illuminated the street. In those flashes all I saw were figures, some moving quickly, other stumbling, and some not moving at all.
Millie and Madge blew by me in a blur of platinum blonde. Neither one looked at me, but they gripped things I had never imagined them possessing.
Swords.
Cade’s scent of steel and gunpowder swirled on the growing stormy wind, already deep in the streets. Aurelia’s scent was gone from the house as well. Rhys emerged from the basement and headed towards the door, but stopped when he saw me.
“Stay upstairs.”
“No.” I stared at the long weapon in his hand—a sword so large I couldn’t imagine being able to lift it. A dagger, similar in size to the one he had given me, hung at his hip. Both gleamed gold so close to his gloved hands.
“Kassandra, go upstairs, please. I can’t worry about you.”
“What about you? I worry too, you know.”
“I’ll be fine.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped. I believed him. The feeling slithering up and down my neck had nothing to do with him.
“What’s the point of training with Cade if I can’t help?”
“To protect yourself.” He lifted me easily with one hand, forcing me up a step. “Stay. Keep your dagger with you at all times. Watch Warren and the others. Do not leave this house.”
A new pain joined my already tormented head. A small pinch right at the base of my skull. I hadn’t felt it in months, but I recognized it.
“Don’t you dare use that sire-control crap on me!”
“Stay here, Kassandra. I mean it.”
“The hell you do! You promised me you wouldn’t give direct orders.”
“This is different.” He turned and I could see—feel—his muscles tense in preparation for taking off at full speed.
“That makes you a liar!”
He hesitated, as I knew he would.
I was just about to dive after him, throw myself out the door before he could stop me, when in the midst of all the screaming there came a moan. A bone-chilling, toe-curling, horrible sound.
A shadow loomed in the doorway just as the thunder crashed, masking the terrible sound. A hand reached out towards me, through the open door.
Rhys whipped around, his sword cutting up through the arm, then down through the head. The skull cracked and smashed, and the entire body fell to the wooden floor, into the light of the house.
The arm landed at my feet.
I screamed.
The fingers twitched and flexed, as though reaching for me. Blood spilled out from the clean cut just above the elbow, pooling over the hardwood floor. The arm grew pale with the loss of fluid, then shriveled and dried up, the fingers freezing in their sporadic motions. At Rhys’s feet, the body did the same. Mummifying in little more than a minute.
“What the hell is that?” I couldn’t help but back up another step, retreating from the blood that was quickly drying on the floor.
Rhys kicked the remainder of the body outside onto the front walk, then grabbed the arm and tossed it through the door as well. With a quick flick of his wrist his lighter sparked, creating a flame which he then set to the body. Even in the rain, the flesh ignited. He didn’t move back towards me. “Please go upstairs now. I can’t waste any more time.”
“What is it?” I refused to let him go without telling me anything.
“Cariosus. A failed turning. They eat flesh as well as drink blood, and they are loose on the streets. Now would you like me to stay here and continue to fight with you, or would you rather I go help?”
I felt terrible. Selfish. Stupid. All those things. There was nothing more to say. The only thing I could think of was the horrible sound the creature had made, and the way the shadows and figures out in the street lumbered and crawled. My curiosity could have been getting people killed.
Rhys was on the steps with me in the next instant, his lips pressed to my forehead. “Stay here,” he said again, all the anger gone from his voice. “If any of them get inside, crush the head, burn the bodies. Do not let them bite you. If another vampire comes in . . . destroy the heart, remove it. Same with the head, it must be burned.”
He kissed me again, and was gone.
Nothing more than a door stood between me and the storm and battle raging beyond. Yet, my mind was fixed on one sole fact. I had finally gotten the information I had so desperately sought only months before.
How to kill a vampire.
“Kass.”
I ran up the stairs at Warren’s voice. He stood at the very top of the staircase, on the third floor, with Olivia, Brody and Gianna just behind him. I was surprised to see Gia here without the General, but that was a matter for another time. “You shouldn’t be out in the open,” I said, stopping by my room to grab the dagger before ushering them back towards the library.
“Cade said we should stay on the third floor,” he said. “Apparently those th
ings aren’t so good at climbing stairs.”
“Well, if Cade said it, it must be true,” I said, shutting the door and locking it for good measure. “I’ll stay here with you though. Just in case.” The icy pain on my neck flared to life again.
Olivia huffed as she threw herself into the plush armchair by the window. “Great. So you’re our only line of defense? We’re doomed.”
I was too agitated to have any sort of patience for her. I crossed the room fast enough to look like I had blinked out of existence and back again, right in Olivia’s face, a hand on either arm of her chair. “Defend yourself then if you don’t want my help.”
“Girls, that’s enough,” Gianna placed a hand on my shoulder and gently edged me away from Olivia. “Fighting each other will help nothing.”
“It might pass the time,” Brody said with his usual mirth.
Olivia looked the proper shade of pale, so I backed away. The icy cold intensified, and I couldn’t keep still. I paced and rubbed at my neck.
“Is something bothering you, Kassandra?” Gianna’s voice was calm and quiet, though an acrid odor of fear oozed from her and the others.
“Something’s not right,” I mumbled mostly to myself, certain they wouldn’t have heard me. With my eyes closed, I spoke quietly to myself, working through what the icy pain meant. “It’s not Rhys. Not Rhys. Then who? What? Cade can take care of himself. Aurelia is practically indestructible.” The sensation didn’t change with any of those thoughts. “Millie is tougher than she looks. Madge, too.” Still no change. “Warren and the others are here, in the house.” A single sharp sting struck me, stunning me to stillness. “Warren, Olivia, Gianna, Brody.” I listed their names to myself and waited for some sign, but got nothing. Growling, I grabbed the windowsill, knocking my head against the glass and looking out into the quiet backyard. I could hear the screams and moans from the streets. Other houses had all their lights on, and doors opened and closed.
There were only five vampires out there against how many VFO members and their flesh-eating creatures? Would it be enough? How many humans would have no help at all?
