The much anticipated next Night 7 page attacker.
No one rushed toward me. Nothing
moved at all, in fact. I used the railing to
hoist myself to my feet, my head
continuing to ring while nausea and the
pitching waves made it hard to find my
footing. I hadn’t taken one step before I
tripped, cursing my clumsiness. Then I
looked down . . . and stared.
I hadn’t tripped because I was dealing
with the aftereffects of getting my head
bashed against the hull. I’d tripped
because the deck was covered in what
looked like lasagna. It took a few seconds
to translate the sight.
Not lasagna. The remains of the
vampire who jumped me. Had to be; the
other vampire was slumped over the
controls, slowly withering as all vampires
did when they truly died. I’d shoved so
much electricity into my attacker that he
had exploded.
I was torn between wanting to laugh
from relief and wanting to crawl back to
the railing and throw up until I passed out.
I’d wanted to kill my captors and I had,
yet I hadn’t been ready to know the full
extent of my abilities. As usual, life hadn’t
waited until I was ready to show me what
it had in store.
The sound of several hard thumps
yanked my focus from the terrible sight
around me. They came from below deck,
and caution mingled with hope. Was that
Maximus? Or another guard trying to lure
me down to the same lethal trap I’d used
on his buddies?
I went over to the narrow staircase,
looking at it with resignation. My whole
body was drained but the fight might not
be over. Bad guys didn’t stop for timeouts
and neither could I.
I didn’t bother to creep down the
staircase. At my stealthiest, I couldn’t
sneak up on a vampire who knew I was
coming. My only defense was my right
hand, and it felt like a light bulb that was
one switch flip away from burning out.
The thumps continued, coming from
underneath the floor despite me being
below deck now. Did this boat have
another level to it?
I flinched at every pitch and roll of the
boat, anticipating a sixth attacker about to
pounce on me. The only open door along
the narrow hallway was the one filled
with bodies, but I wasn’t alone. The
continued sounds proved that.
I’d reached the end of the hallway when
a thump vibrated right underneath my foot.
I jumped back, weak sparks shooting from
my hand, before noticing the latch in the
floor.
A cargo hold locked from the outside.
That ruled out an imminent attack by a
sixth guard. Another thump sounded.
Maximus, I thought, relief making me drop
to my knees. I pulled out the bolt, flung
open the trap door . . . and stared.
“Please,” a red-streaked girl mumbled.
Her eyes were closed and more bloody
forms were beside her.
I wanted to pull her up but didn’t touch
her. Even drained, the juice in me would
harm her and she looked near death
already. Hannibal’s directive to Stephen
rang across my mind. Fuck someone in
the hold instead. I hadn’t been the only
cargo Hannibal had picked up.
“It’s going to be all right.”
Fury made my voice sound stronger
than I felt. The girl’s eyes fluttered open.
“Who’re you?” she mumbled.
“I’m the person who killed every last
vampire on this boat,” I told her. After
seeing the contents of the cargo hold, I
was no longer repelled by my abilities. In
fact, I was glad I’d blasted the fifth guard
to smithereens.
She smiled weakly, then that faded and
her eyes closed. I rattled the door to get
her attention.
“Don’t. You need to stay awake, and if
anyone else is alive, you need to wake
them, too. Tell me you understand.”
Her eyes opened, their blue color
reminding me of Gretchen’s. They looked
to be the same ago, too. My anger grew.
“Got it.” Then she began to shake the
closest form to her.
“Get up, Janice. Help is on the way.”
I rose, filled with fresh determination.
Damn right it was.
Then I opened every door in the tiny
hallway. Two were storage closets, one
was a bathroom, and the fourth . . .
I rushed forward. Maximus was on the
floor in a tiny bedroom, duct tape around
his mouth and something that looked like
silver razor wire binding him from ankles
to neck. It wrapped so tightly around him
that it disappeared into his skin in places,
as if his struggles had driven it deeper.
I’d cut my fingers off if I tried to mess
with that wire, but I could help with the
gag. I ripped it off, slapping his face when
he still didn’t open his eyes.
“Maximus, wake up!”
No response. If not for the fact that
vampires turned into withered husks when
they died, I would’ve sworn that I was too
late. Then, with excruciating slowness, he
opened his eyes.
I stared at him in horror. The whites
were streaked with dark gray lines. A
closer look revealed that underneath all
the dried blood, his skin bore similar
streaks.
“They never got the liquid silver out of
you,” I whispered.
No response from Maximus. His eyes
rolled back and he shuddered so hard that
the wire tore away chunks of flesh. Marty
had told me what would happen to a
vampire if liquid silver stayed in their
system long enough. It wouldn’t kill
Maximus. It would do something worse:
degrade his brain until he became a
madman, and once it reached that stage, it
couldn’t be reversed. Even if I cut the
razor wire off him, the real poison would
still be destroying him from the inside out.
Maximus couldn’t help me save the
dying humans in the cargo hold. He
couldn’t even save himself.
Chapter 16
Isearched the dead vampires’ bodies.
Hannibal had the only cell phone, yet it
was cut in half along with the rest of his
upper body. Then I spent a futile several
minutes trying the boat’s communications
system, but I’d overloaded that when I
killed the vampire slumped over it. Even
if a 1–900–VAMPIRE helpline existed, I
had no way to reach it. I didn’t see lights
from nearby boats, either, not that I could
steer toward them. The engine was as
fried as the communications system.
I wanted to scream out of sheer
frustration. There had to be something I
could do!
Then my frustration began to fade as
logic took over. I could wait until I
eventually drifted to land or the path of
another boat, but that would be too late for
everyone else. There was, however, one
vampire I could reach without the aid of
technology, and despite the many reasons
why I didn’t want to, unless I was willing
to let Maximus go mad and the humans
die, I had no choice.
I sat down on a section of the deck that
wasn’t covered in body parts. With the
cool breeze whipping my hair, I ran my
right hand over my skin until I found a
familiar essence trail and followed it.
Within seconds, the deck vanished and I
found myself looking at the parking lot of
the Motel 6 in South Bend.
Lights from three police cars cast a
red and blue glow over the ruined
exterior of my former hotel room. Most
of the window was gone and bullet holes
pockmarked the outer walls. With all the
gunfire, the inside must look like Swiss
cheese, too. Then I noticed the darkhaired
figure on the edge of the parking
lot, barking furiously into his cell phone
in Romanian.
Seeing him at the site of my
kidnapping didn’t bode well, but if I
doomed Maximus and those poor people
by not taking this chance, I couldn’t live
with myself anyway.
“Hang up, Vlad,” I said shortly. “We
need to talk.”
Shock flashed over his face. He
whirled as if trying to pinpoint my
location, hanging up without saying
another word.
“Leila. Where—”
“Are you here to admire your lackey’s
handiwork?” I cut him off, going on the
offensive. “If so, you’d be proud.
Hannibal shot up this place with an utter
disregard for innocent peoples’ lives, all
to make sure Maximus was pumped full
of enough liquid silver to make him
barely able to move.”
Fire erupted from his hands. “I had
nothing to do with this, so tell me where
you are. Right now.”
He could be trying to find my location
in case he realized I’d managed to free
myself, but as I told Maximus, if Vlad
wanted to kill me, I expected him to be a
lot less cowardly about it. I was still
asking the most obvious question,
though.
“Then why are you here? And put out
your hands, cops are crawling all over
the place.”
To punctuate my point, a police officer
walked up, looking at Vlad in the
suspicious way any sane person would.
“You. What’s wrong with your hands—”
“Shut up and leave,” Vlad said with a
flash of his gaze, though he did
extinguish the flames. The officer headed
back to the hotel and Vlad continued as
if we hadn’t been interrupted.
“I’m here because I tracked
Maximus’s cell phone to this area, but
I’m not behind this attack.”
“Then we’ve got another problem,
because the vampire who grabbed me
knew things about my abilities that only
you and a few of your guards knew.”
Vlad’s features hardened into
diamondlike planes. “Oh?”
“First things first. You’re not
surprised that I’m alive, so I really did
connect to you in my dreams before,
didn’t I?”
His hands didn’t light up again, but
they briefly turned orange, as if the fire
tried to free itself but he held it back.
“Yes. Perhaps you don’t need to
physically touch anything to link to me
because we’ve shared each other’s
blood, perhaps it’s because your powers
are stronger than you realize. Either
way, your ‘dreams’ were real.”
I sighed. Deep down, I’d always
known that, even when I desperately
wanted to deny it. Of course, that meant I
had a bargain to work out first.
“Promise me you won’t kill Maximus
and I’ll tell you what I know of my
location.”
Vlad growled out something in
Romanian. I couldn’t translate all of it,
but I recognized several curses.
“We don’t have time for games,” he
finished.
“I know,” I shot back. “I’ve got
several humans who need medical
attention and a vampire going insane
from silver poisoning, but you said you
were going to kill Maximus. So unless
you swear on your father’s and son’s
graves that you’re not, I won’t give up
my location. Oh, and you can’t torture
him, either,” I added, remembering the
backhanded way he’d kept his promise
not to kill Marty.
Vlad’s eyes changed from copper to
green, glowing so hotly that I found
myself thinking if dragons were real,
they’d have eyes just like his. My next
thought was We’re screwed, because
then he smiled in that lethally genial way
I’d seen him do right before he burned
someone to ash.
“On the graves of my father and son,
I, Vladislav Dracul, swear not to torture
or kill Rossal de Payen, the man you
know as Maximus.” He paused a moment
as if letting those words sink in. “Now,
Leila. Where are you?”
Vlad was infamous for his honesty, yet
that smile made me feel like I’d
overlooked something. Still, I’d done the
best I could, and Vlad was the only
chance Maximus and those humans had.
“I’m on a boat, and since I wasn’t
unconscious long, we’ve got to be on
Lake Michigan . . .”
The sun rose three hours ago, but I had yet
to see another boat. In some ways, that
was good. I’d never explain the mess on
the deck to the Coast Guard, and it meant
Hannibal’s boss hadn’t discovered his
“package” had killed her delivery boys.
I was below deck, alternating between
checking on Maximus and doing what I
could for the critically drained victims.
That didn’t consist of much beyond
dropping down blankets, duct tape and
fabric for bandages, and cups of water for
the conscious ones. I’d considered cutting
Maximus to give them some of his blood,
but the last time I got close, only a quick
leap backward kept him from biting off a
hunk of my leg. Either the pain made him
lash out instinctively or the madness had
started to set in.
I found myself praying to anyone who
might be listening that help wouldn’t
arrive too late.
I was on my way back to the cargo hold
when all of a sudden, I couldn’t move. It
was as if an invisible, massive fist
squeezed me from head to toe, choking off
my breath as instantly as it had frozen me
in place. Panic had me mentally
screaming, but I couldn’t twitch or draw a
breath. It even felt like the currents inside
me came to a screeching halt.
Buzzing started to sound in my ears,
growing louder as the seconds stretched
longer. Then, just as abruptly as it had
come, that terrible squeezing sensation
vanished. I fell forward, sucking in huge
gulps of air. I had to blink repeatedly to
chase away the tears and black spots in
my vision. Once I could see straight again,
I looked up—and then froze for a different
reason this time.
Vlad loomed over me, dark hair wildly
tangled, lean stubbled features a
thunderous mixture of fierceness and
triumph. His pants and shirt were soaked,
their light blue color making them almost
see-through. I blinked, wondering if I’d
fallen over the edge of consciousness
without realizing it.
A faint smile twisted his mouth. “I’m
real, Leila. See?”
He grasped my arms and pulled me up.
My legs trembled but held, and with
ragged pieces of rubber still dangling
from my hands, I touched his bare wrists.
Heat scalded my flesh at the same instant
that a current sizzled into him.
Oh yes, he was definitely real.
Of all the thoughts to cross my mind in
that instant, He looks even better than I
remembered was the last one I wanted
Vlad to hear. It didn’t matter. His
widening smile told me he’d caught it. I
let go, seizing on a more important topic.
“What just happened? I couldn’t move.”
“Mencheres is with me,” he said, as if
that explained it.
My brow rose. “And?”
He dropped one hand but tightened the
other. “Come.”
I followed Vlad up the narrow steps.
Once topside, I saw the Egyptian vampire,
also soaking wet, surveying the remains of
my captors with detached admiration.
Then Mencheres turned, shading his gaze
against the bright, mid-morning sun.
“My apologies for using my power on
you, Leila. We thought it necessary to
immobilize the entire boat in case some of
your captors had survived.”
You think I wouldn’t notice someone
else trying to kill me? I thought jadedly.
“One could have jumped overboard and
then waited to catch you unawares,”
Mencheres replied, reminding me that
Vlad wasn’t the only mind reader on
board. “That’s why we swam the last few
miles. Less to notice when we’re under
water.”
“So you’re the reason I felt like I was
encased in invisible carbonite?”
The vampire shrugged. “I can control
things with my mind,” he said, his tone
implying that it wasn’t a big deal.
With that incredible ability, Vlad
should take Mencheres with him on all his
rescue missions. All his assaults, too.
A growl made me glance up. Vlad’s
expression was closed off, reminding me
that this wasn’t a happy reunion.
“Thank you both for coming,” I said, my
voice turning businesslike. “The injured
people are in the cargo hold and Maximus
is in one of the rooms below.
Another ominous sound from Vlad. “I
know. I smelled him.”
“The humans need blood for healing,” I
said, ignoring that. “And Maximus needs
that silver out of him. He’s already
showing signs of . . . mental instability.”
With that, I headed downstairs, making
sure to sing anything that came to mind as I
went. Being near Vlad was so much
harder than seeing him in a dream. Every
emotion I’d tried to suppress resurfaced
with pitiless intensity, and that was only
how he affected my heart. My hands still
tingled from their brief contact with his
skin, and if his wet clothes molded any
more explicitly to his body, I’d soon smell
like eau de slut to any vampire within
sniffing distance.
He’ll be gone soon, I consoled myself.
Then I could go back to burying those
traitorous emotions by hunting for Marty’s
killer. Hannibal said he didn’t know who
hired him, but a search through the
memories in his bones would show if he
was lying.
I’d gone into Maximus’s room without
thinking about it. He lay exactly as he had
before, but with one marked difference.
His eyes were open, silver streaking them
like hideous veins, and they were fixed on
a point over my shoulder.
I turned. Vlad was in the doorway
behind me. He stared down at Maximus,
his face coldly expressionless. Then,
almost casually, he withdrew a knife.
Maximus’s eyes fluttered shut, either
from resignation or insensibleness.
Without my even needing to concentrate, a
whipcord of electricity shot from my hand.
“You promised!”
Vlad glanced at the glowing strand and
his eyes went green.
“Are you threatening me?”
His voice was buttery smooth—and
deadly. My gut twisted from a mixture of
fear and resolve. He could burn me to
death before I snapped this whip, but I
wasn’t about to back down.
“I am if you’re about to break your
word.”
My wrist was suddenly seized in an
iron grip. Any other vampire would’ve
been knocked backward from touching my
right hand when it was fully charged, but
Vlad absorbed the voltage like it was
mere static electricity. Then he leaned
down, brushing my hair back with his free
hand.
The one that still held a knife.
“I told you before—I dislike being
called a liar.” Breath from his words fell
like the softest of blows against my neck.
“But more importantly, if I had decided to
go back on my word, you wouldn’t be
able to stop me.”
Just as blindingly fast, he was kneeling
in front of Maximus, slicing through that
razor wire with brutal efficiency. The
cord of electricity I’d summoned curled
up into itself before disappearing into my
hand like a turtle seeking the shelter of its
shell.
No, he’d proved that I couldn’t stop him
even if his pyrokinesis was out of the
equation. At that moment, I felt like
exactly what I was: a woman who was in
way over her head with the creatures
around her. All at once, loneliness
overwhelmed me. I didn’t belong in the
vampire world, but thanks to my own
oddities, I didn’t fit into the human one,
either.
I turned on my heel and left the room. I
couldn’t do anything about being an
outcast in every society that existed, but I
could at least let the terrified survivors
know that help had arrived at last.
Chapter 17
Mencheres and Vlad stood close
together, talking too softly for me to
overhear. Still, they stopped as soon as I
came back on deck.
Weariness helped me hold back my
snort. They weren’t even trying to be
subtle, were they?
“My associate will be here shortly to
transport us,” Mencheres stated.
Good. I’d checked on Maximus again,
too, since he looked in worse shape than
the humans, which was saying something.
“Just drop me anywhere after you take
care of them,” I said, giving the dead
bodies a calculated look. I hadn’t cared
before in my search for cell phones, but a
few of them carried cash. I’d need that to
keep up my hunt for the female vampire.
“Robbing them won’t be necessary.
You’re coming with me.”
Disbelief snapped my head up. Vlad
flashed me a smile that was both charming
and challenging, while his expression
almost dared me to argue.
I took that dare.
“I’m not coming with you because my
problems no longer concern you.” Ice was
warmer than my tone. “So thanks for the
arrogant assumption, but no thanks.”
“But they do concern me,” he replied,
his tone as pleasant as mine had been
cold. “If I do nothing when someone
attempts to blow up and then kidnap my
former lover, my enemies will think I’m
weak and attack more of my people.”
“I’m not one of your people and I don’t
need your protection, as all the bodies on
this boat should attest.”
Vlad’s charming smile never slipped. I
stiffened, remembering he was never more
dangerous than when he smiled.
“As you wish.” Then he glanced at the
door leading to the cargo hold. “Their
heartbeats are faint, and they might not
live long enough to make it to the hospital.
Pity.”
My fists clenched, the only sign of the
fury coursing through me. “You promised
to heal them.”
“No,” he replied instantly. “You made
me swear not to kill or torture Maximus,
but you never bargained for them.
Dropping them off at a hospital is free, but
my blood comes at a price.”
I hadn’t thought to bargain for them
because Vlad normally wouldn’t need to
be bribed to help innocent victims. Yet
from his expression, he would do nothing
more than bring them to a hospital if I
didn’t go with him, and that might not be
enough. Only vampire blood could
guarantee their survival.
I glanced at Mencheres, but the other
vampire appeared to be fascinated by the
waves lapping against the boat. Really? I
thought in disgust.
His oblique shrug was my answer. I’d
get no help from him, either. Once more, I
found myself cursing the limitations of my
humanity. Vlad had me cornered and we
both knew it.
“Heal them and make sure they’re safe,
and I’ll come with you,” I said, jaw
clenched so tight I could barely speak.
His teeth flashed in something too feral
to be called a grin. “Wise choice.”
Probably not, but unless I wanted to kill
those people myself, I didn’t have any
other option.
Istared down at the boat from the
helicopter. We were up high enough that
the water was no longer white from the
churning rotors. Vlad sat up front with
Mencheres, but I was in the back with the
humans, trying to convince the crying ones
that these vampires wouldn’t eat them.
My attempts at comfort were
interrupted when an eerie blue light
suffused the entire boat. For a few
seconds, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Then a flash of color yanked my attention
over to Vlad. He sat as if completely
relaxed, a half smile curling his mouth, but
his hands were engulfed in flames.
My gaze flew back to the boat. Now I
knew what that blue light was. Fire. Vlad
never changed his relaxed position, even
when the boat exploded with a spectacular
boom! that shook the chopper and littered
the lake with flaming debris.
“We can go now,” he said to the pilot, a
muscular blond vampire Mencheres had
addressed as Gorgon.
I closed my mouth with an audible
click. Vlad hadn’t rigged the boat with
explosives. He’d destroyed it with his
power, and while I’d seen him burn
people to death, I hadn’t known the full
extent of his abilities. Since he’d just
made a forty-foot craft go up like a Roman
candle, I suppose I should be flattered that
he hadn’t laughed when I threatened him
earlier. The boat explosion was as
devastating as the gas line bomb—
“Shit,” I burst out as something
occurred to me. “We didn’t grab any
bones off of those vamps.”
I’d also lost Adrian’s charred body
part. Not that Hannibal would have taken
it with us even if I’d asked. Kidnappers
were notoriously uncooperative.
“They were hired mercenaries; I doubt
their bones would contain anything
useful,” Vlad stated. He didn’t ask me to
explain the context behind my thought
about Adrian. He must have figured out
why Maximus and I had carted around a
body part.
“I exploded the boat to hide the
evidence of what you did, and to send a
message to whoever hired Hannibal that
now he’ll have to deal with me. Or she,”
he added reflectively.
He must have read that from my
thoughts, too. Then Maximus let out an
extended moan, turning my attention to
him.
“Why haven’t you started to get the
silver out?”
Vlad’s smile remained but his features
hardened.
“It will require extensive cutting. If I do
it, then I’m guilty of torturing him. Gorgon
is flying the helicopter, and while
Mencheres could hold him down, you
don’t have the experience to remove it
properly.”
I swallowed. Much as I hated the
thought of Maximus continuing to suffer, I
didn’t want to release Vlad from his word
not to torture him. Wait it was, then.
“Where are we going?” Please don’t
say back to your castle, please don’t say
back to your castle . . .
“Fine.” Glints of emerald appeared in
his burnished copper eyes. “I won’t say
it.”
For the second time in ten minutes, the
word shit flew out of my mouth. Vlad only
chuckled, the sound as enticing and
merciless as the man himself.
Mencheres and his wife, Kira, lived near
Chicago, which explained how quickly
he’d rendezvoused with Vlad. We stopped
by his house first, which relieved me for
several reasons. For one, several of
Mencheres’s staff immediately went to
work on Maximus. Two, I got to shower
and change out of the oversized wetsuit
Date: 2015-12-11; view: 378
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