Twilight Fulfilled
Twilight Fulfilled
Maggie Shayne
The First Imortal Walks gain Utanapishtim has paid dearly for creating the vampire race – imprisoned in a living death for centuries, driven to near madness.With a single whitehot glance, he immolates his descendants…and the vampire Armageddon begins. Beautiful and deadly Brigit Poe, not wholly vampire but loyal to the bloodline, is called into action. Her destiny: to vanquish the oncegreat king of the immortals and save the vampire race.Soon locked in an unwinnable battle, the two warriors discover a passion so shocking it threatens every truth they’ve ever known – and seems fated to end in death and heartbreak.
Praise for the novels of
MAGGIE SHAYNE
“Shayne crafts a convincing world, tweaking vampire
legends just enough to draw fresh blood.”
—Publishers Weekly on Demon’s Kiss
“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb
touch, blending fantasy and romance into an
outstanding reading experience.”
—RT Book Reviews on Embrace the Twilight
“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate.
She satisfies every wicked craving.”
—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster
“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new
and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”
—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunger
“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping
intensity and bewitching passion.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
Also by Maggie Shayne
Children of Twilight
TWILIGHT PROPHECY
Wings in the Night
VACATION WITH A VAMPIRE…AND OTHER
IMMORTALS:
‘Vampires in Paradise’
PRINCE OF TWILIGHT
BLUE TWILIGHT
‘Before Blue Twilight’
EDGE OF TWILIGHT
‘Run From Twilight’
EMBRACE THE TWILIGHT
TWILIGHT HUNGER
‘Twilight Vows’
BORN IN TWILIGHT
BEYOND TWILIGHT
TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS
TWILIGHT MEMORIES
TWILIGHT PHANTASIES
BLOODLINE
ANGEL’S PAIN
LOVER’S BITE
DEMON’S KISS
DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT
COLDER THAN ICE
THICKER THAN WATER
Secrets of Shadow Falls
KISS ME, KILL ME
KILL ME AGAIN
KILLING ME SOFTLY
Twilight
Fulfilled
Maggie
Shayne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my editor, Leslie Wainger,
who has been with this series from its birth. With this
book, WINGS IN THE NIGHT is eighteen years old,
and twenty novels, novellas and an online read long, but
it never would have survived toddlerhood, nor grown into
the body of work that it has become, without the steadfast
support, wise guidance, and true love of its co-mommy.
Thank you will never suffice, but I’ll say it anyway.
Thank you, Leslie, with all my heart.
—Maggie
Well, I suppose I am forced to admit, the above
gooeyness goes for me, too, though my version will be
far more dignified and less … drippy. Still, it is undeniably
true that Leslie Wainger’s guidance had been invaluable.
Except, of course, for those rare occasions when she cut
or shortened my scenes. Still, no one is perfect. And she
really is a wise and wonderful woman. For a mortal. So,
thank you from me, as well, dear Leslie. You are one of
those rare humans that I can honestly call “friend.”
—Rhiannon
1
Coastal Maine
It was the blackest, rainiest night the forgotten and overgrown cemetery had seen in centuries. Ancient tombstones leaned drunkenly beneath the bones of dead-looking trees, while gnarled limbs shivered in the cold. Arthritic twig-fingers scratched the tallest of the old stone monuments like old, yellow fingernails on slate. And the surviving vampires huddled together around an open, muddy grave.
Brigit Poe, part vampire, part human, and one of the only two of her kind, was dressed for battle, not for a funeral. It was only coincidence that she wore entirely black. That breathable second-skin fabric favored by runners covered her body from ankles to waist like a surgical glove. Over the leggings, she wore tall black boots, with buckles all the way up to her knees. The chunky four-inch heels provided extra height, an advantage in battle. And the weight of them would add more potency to a kick. Her black slicker looked as if she’d lifted it straight from the back of a cowboy actor in an old spaghetti western. It was long and heavy, with a caped back, but it did more than keep the rain away. Its dense fabric would help deflect a blade.
She could have wished for a hood. She could have wished for a lot of things, topmost among them: for the task she faced to fall to anyone other than her. But that wasn’t going to happen.
As she stood there, watching each vampire move forward to pour ashes into the muddy hole, her twin brother walked up to her and plunked a black cowboy hat onto her dripping-wet blond curls. She had, she’d been told, hair like Goldilocks, the face of an angel, the heart of a demon—and the power of Satan himself.
Black hat, she thought. It figured. In that spaghetti Western she’d been envisioning, she definitely would have worn a black hat. Her brother would have worn a white one. He was the good guy. The hero.
Not her.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he told her. “Hunting him down. Killing him.”
“No shit. He’s five thousand years old and more powerful than any of us.”
“Not exactly what I meant, sis.” James—known to her as J.W. despite his constant protests—looked her dead in the eyes. She pretended not to know what he was looking for, even though she did. Decency. Morality. Some sign that she was struggling with the ethics of the decision that had been made—that she must find and execute the ancient one who had started the vampire race.
Only days earlier, her brother had located and resurrected the first immortal, the ancient Sumerian king known as “the Flood Survivor.” He was the original Noah, from a tale far older than the Biblical version. His name was Ziasudra in Sumerian, Utanapishtim in Babylonian.
A prophecy, the same prophecy that had foretold the war now raging between vampires and the humans who had finally learned of their existence, had also said that the Ancient One, the first immortal, the man from whom the entire vampire race had descended, was their only hope of survival.
Or at least, that was what they had thought it said. Turned out, their ancestor was actually the means of their destruction. Still believing the Ancient One was their salvation, J.W. had used his healing power to raise Utana from the ashes. And the man had returned to life with his mind corrupted by thousands of years spent trapped, conscious, his soul bound to his ashes.
Believing he’d been cursed by the gods for sharing his gift of immortality and inadvertently creating the vampire race, he’d set out to destroy them all. One look beaming from his eyes, and they were annihilated. He’d killed many vampires already.
Human vigilantes had killed even more.
The end of their kind, it seemed, was at hand.
Unless she could stop Utana from his self-appointed mission.
“What I meant,” her brother went on, “was that killing someone who can’t truly die, knowing that all you’re really doing is sentencing him to spend eternity, virtually buried alive—”
“Are you trying to tweak my conscience, J.W.?” she asked, irritated. “It won’t work. I don’t have one. Never have. That bastard’s killed hundreds of my kind. Our kind. I’ve got no problem taking him out before he can eliminate the rest of us. No problem whatsoever.”
Someone cleared his throat, and she looked toward the open grave again. Thirteen survivors of the recent annihilation had scooped up the dust of their beloved dead and brought the remains here, to this abandoned and long-forgotten cemetery in the wilds of Maine.
Those gathered included ten vampires: Eric and Tamara, Rhiannon and Roland, Jameson and Angelica, Edge and Amber Lily, Sarafina and the newly turned Lucy. In addition, there was Sarafina’s mortal mate, Willem Stone, and the mongrel twins, Brigit herself and her brother, J.W. The supposed only hope for the dark half of their family.
Rhiannon, their unofficial aunt, her long, slit-to-the-thigh gown dragging in the mud at her uncharacteristically bare feet, poured the final jar of ashes into the hole, threw the jar in after them, then tipped her head back and opened her arms to the skies. The rain poured down on the pale skin of her breasts, almost completely exposed by the plunging neckline of her bloodred gown. Her long black hair hung in wet straggles, and her eyeliner was running down her cheeks, mixed with rainwater and tears. She was not herself.
“I know you can hear me, my friends. My family.” Her voice broke, but Roland moved up behind her and placed his strong hands on her bare shoulders. Then slowly, he slid them outward, following the length of her arms upward, his black cloak opening with the motion, sheltering her from the rain. He clasped her hands in his, his arms open to the skies just as hers were.
It was a beautiful image. And heartbreaking at the same time.
“I know you can hear me,” Rhiannon said again. “And I trust you’ve found that we, too, enter paradise when we leave this life. We, too, are worthy of heaven. We have souls—souls that feel, that love, that live, a thousand times more powerfully than those of the mortals who call us soulless monsters.” She closed her eyes, drew a breath. “Be well, there in the light, my beloved ones. Be well, and fear not. For those you’ve left behind will survive.” She opened her eyes, and they were cold and dark, more frightening than ever, ringed as they were in black. “And I swear by Isis Herself, you will be avenged.”
She lowered her arms slowly, but Roland still held them, and he wrapped them around her waist, enfolding her in his cloak and in his arms as if they were one.
“It is done, my love. Come, we need to brief our little warrior before we send her off into battle.”
Rhiannon turned, meeting Brigit’s eyes, holding them. There was so much there, Brigit thought, staring at her mentor, the woman she most admired, most wanted to be like and whose approval she most craved. And truly, had never been without. There was love in those dark-ringed eyes. Love and grief and fear. A lot of fear.
Fear in Rhiannon’s eyes was something so unusual that it shook Brigit right to the core.
J.W. tightened his hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, little sister.”
“Easy for you to say. Your job was to raise our living dead forebear. I’m the one who has to deal with him now that he’s up and rampaging.”
“Come,” Eric said. “Let’s return to the mansion. It’s unsafe to be out in the open for long, even here.”
One by one, and two by two, they filed out of the cemetery together, taking a soggy path that wound from the old graveyard along a narrow and twisting course to the towering structure that sat alone on the rocky, seaside cliff. The ocean was as restless tonight as the skies, as the vampires and their kin made their way higher. Winds buffeted them, howling and crying as if they, too, mourned the loss of so many.
Brigit walked alone. Normally she and J.W. would have been a pair, side by side, the only two of their kind and yet opposites in every way. But now he had his mate, the beautiful, brilliant Lucy, a vampire now. And Brigit was … she was alone, and facing the biggest challenge of her entire existence. A challenge she didn’t want and wasn’t sure she could handle.
And yet, she was all but on her way. Her bag was packed and waiting at the mansion. She’d been waiting only for the funeral rites to conclude.
Up ahead, Rhiannon, in the lead—where else?—reached the mansion’s door and stood, holding it open while the others entered the crumbling ruin.
Brigit was last in line, and as she passed, Rhiannon put a hand on her forearm. “We’ll have a talk before you leave,” she said softly. “Wait in the library.”
Great, Brigit thought. One more delay, and it was as inevitable as it would be unpleasant. The elders must want to brief her before she left on what was undoubtedly a suicide mission. Just what she needed. A lecture before dying.
Downtown Bangor, Maine
The oldest being on the planet, the first immortal, the original Noah, stood trembling on a village sidewalk in the pouring rain. He wore a dripping wet bed sheet, wrapped in the old style around his body, covering one shoulder. He’d arrogantly refused to don the clothing that had been offered him when he’d first been resurrected. The type of clothing that he now realized was necessary if he hoped to become invisible among mankind in this strange new age. People looked askance at him, ordinary humans, mortals, dashing past him from their speeding mechanical conveyances to the small and poorly designed buildings that lined the streets. In and out they ran, as if the rain would melt them. Up and down the streets they rolled in those machines. Automobiles. Cars, he’d heard them called.
He wanted to know how they worked. But later. First he wanted to become invisible. He would prefer dead, but death wasn’t an option for him right now.
Right now he had very few options, in fact. But he did have needs, and the immediate ones were urgent enough to distract him from the problem of attracting too much attention. That would come after his initial needs were met. He needed warmth, shelter from the ice-cold, unforgiving rain. So much rain.
It would have been a blessing in his time—unless it went on too long. He wondered briefly whether this rain was normal in today’s civilization, or whether the gods, the Anunaki, had yet again decreed that mankind must be brought to its knees.
Utana shook off the shiver of apprehension that thought induced and tried once again to keep his focus on his immediate requirements. He needed food, lots of it. His belly was rumbling, twisting and gnawing at him, demanding sustenance. And water—he needed sweet water to drink. Those things were first. The rest could wait. The garments to help him blend in with the mundane commoners as thick on this land as fleas upon a desert dog, the knowledge he so craved and must acquire in order to make his way in this world, the mission he must accomplish in order to extract forgiveness from the gods—all of those things could come later.
Food. Water. Shelter.
Those first.
And so he looked at the buildings he passed—red brick or wood, no beauty nor art to them, with wide openings in the walls that appeared to be empty but, he had learned, were not. In the rain it was easier to see the droplets on the hard, transparent walls. When dry, the things—windows, they called them, made of a substance known as glass—were nearly invisible.
And yet, not quite.
He moved closer to one of the windows, drawn by the smell of food, only to pause as he stared at the image he saw there. The image of a man, wearing exactly what he wore and moving exactly as he moved. Clearly a reflection, he thought, lifting his hand, watching as the image did the same. Much like what one would see when looking into still water.
He tipped his head slightly and studied his image in the glass. It was no wonder, he thought, that the mortals were disturbed by him. He looked menacing. Wild. Standing in the rain, letting it pour down upon him, while they all raced for cover. He allowed it to soak his hair, his garment, his skin. And he was bigger than most of them, too. Taller, broader. He sported several days’ growth of beard upon his face. Dark it was, and dense, and he noticed that most of the people he encountered kept their faces shaved to the skin. A few had allowed their beards to grow, but they were trimmed carefully, tame and neat.
He pushed a hand through his long, onyx-black hair, shoving the dripping locks backward. And then he returned his attention to the window, and to the people he could see beyond it. They sat at tables, enjoying bountiful food that was brought to them by smiling servants who seemed content with their lot.
Finally something that made sense to him.
He watched for a while before going to the door through which others came and went. As he started to push the door open, a man appeared and stood blocking it. Skinny, but tall enough, and smiling even though his eyes showed fear.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re full tonight. Do you have a reservation?”
Utana looked from the man’s head to his shoes, and up again. “I know not … reservation,” he said. “I wish food.”
“Well, um, right. But as I said, we’re full tonight.” He lifted a hand, a helpless gesture. “No room.”
“Bring food here, then. I wait.” Utana crossed his arms over his chest.
“Um, right. From out of town, are you?”
Utana only grunted at the man, no longer interested in conversing with him. Silence would best convey that the discussion was over.
“Yes, I see. Well, the thing is, it doesn’t quite work that way here. I do have a suggestion for you, however.”
“I know not suggestion. Bring food. I wait.”
“Why don’t you try the soup kitchen? Methodist church at the end of the road. See? You can see the steeple from here.”
He was pointing while he babbled, and Utana only managed to understand a word here and there. He was learning the language rapidly, but interpreting the words spoken in the rapid-fire way of the people here was still difficult. He followed the man’s pointed finger and saw the spire stabbing upward into the sky. “Ah, yes, church. I know church. House of your lonely god.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s it. Go to the church. They’ll have food for you there, and a place to sleep, as well, if you need one.”
Utana nodded, but he was more enticed by the smells coming from within, and impatient with the man, who was clearly trying to send him away without a meal. It was all very good to know there would be a bed for him at the house of the mortal’s singular god. But there was food here now, and he wasn’t leaving without partaking of some of it.
So he simply pushed the skinny man aside and continued opening the door. As he was about to enter, another man ran up and pushed against the door from within. But Utana pushed harder and shoved the man back hard, sending him flying into the wall, where he caught himself with one hand, rubbing the back of his head with the other.
Utana walked into the food place.
There was noise at first, people talking, and the clinking, chinking sounds of their ridiculous eating utensils and dishes. But as their eyes fell upon him, the eating and conversation ceased, and dead silence ensued.
Utana eyed the tables, the food, the stares of the stunned diners, no doubt surprised by the appearance of a large, dripping wet man, dressed in what James of the Vahmpeers had told him was meant to be used as bedding, but he cared not. He was focused only on food, on sustenance. His nostrils flared as he caught the scent of beef, and his gaze shot to its source.
A man in an odd white hat came through a swinging door in the back of the room, bearing in his arms a tray laden with so much bounty he could barely carry it. Each dish was covered by a lid of shining silver, and yet the aromas escaped, and Utana’s stomach churned in its need.
He did not hesitate. He strode toward the small, food-bearing man, who froze at the sight of him. His frightened eyes darted left and right as he debated whether to stay where he was or to retreat. In three strides, Utana was there, taking the tray. Then he turned and walked back through the room. People rose from their tables, backing away from the path he cut. Two people stepped forward instead, and tried to block his way, but he moved them aside with a simple sweep of his powerful arm, sending them tumbling into a nearby table. The table broke, its contents toppling into the laps of the diners who sat there, even as they scrambled to escape. A woman screamed.
Utana moved past the ruckus to the door. Servants shouted after him, asking what he thought he was doing. But he ignored them all, carrying his bounty into the street and through the pouring rain, in search of a sheltered spot in which to eat.
In a moment he spotted one of the humans’ wheeled machines, a large one, with a back like a gigantic box and a pair of doors at the rear that stood wide open. Utana marched straight to it and easily stepped up into the box. He set his bounty on its floor and pulled the doors closed behind him. Making himself comfortable, or as comfortable as he could be while still wet and freezing cold, he lifted the shining lids one by one, bending closer to smell. He had no idea what most of the dishes contained, except for the one that hid the large joint of beef he’d been smelling. It was still warm, brown on the outside and oozing with juices. He picked it up and bit in, and the flavor exploded in his mouth. Tender and luscious, pink in the middle, the meat was the finest meal he’d had since reawakening to life. He leaned back against the metal wall of the box, chewed and swallowed, and sighed in relief.
One need, at least, had been met this day.
Washington, D.C.
“Congratulations, Senator MacBride,” the Senate Majority Leader said.
He’d just sailed into the room where she’d been waiting for over an hour, hand extended as he crossed toward her.
Rising, she accepted the handshake. He wore a huge smile—one of those toothy crocodile smiles she’d learned how to identify her first week in office. So she prepared herself for the storm of bullshit that was sure to follow.
“Thank you, Senator Polenski. And might I ask what is it I’m being congratulated for?”
The veteran senator just waved a hand in the air. “Your new appointment. But please, sit down. Relax. I’ll ring us up some refreshments and tell you all about it.” Walking to his desk, he reached for the phone. “What would you like? Coffee? Perhaps something a bit stronger, to celebrate?”
“I’d really prefer to know what I’m celebrating first, Senator.”
He set the phone back down and perched on the edge of his desk. She was still standing right between the two cushy chairs in front of the desk, on a carpet that was so deep, her sensible two-inch pumps nearly became flats.
He met her eyes. “You’ve been named head of the Committee on U.S.-Vampire Relations.”
She lowered her head, laughing softly. “Fine. Fine, I’ll have coffee. You can tell me all about it as we sip.”
He was stone silent until she had stopped laughing. She weighed the tension in the room and realized that he hadn’t been making a joke. Lifting her head slowly, she met his eyes, tiny blue marbles beneath a head of thick white hair that always looked windblown. “Come on, Senator Polenski, you can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious. Word is out that they exist, thanks to that idiot former CIA operative and his tell-all book. Most of them—and a good number of ordinary human beings, as well—have been wiped out by vigilante groups at this point, but our intelligence agencies believe there are a handful remaining. Surely you’ve been following all of this in the news.”
“I … I didn’t think it was … real.” She sank into one of the chairs, the wind knocked out of her. “I thought the official stance on the late Lester Folsom was that he was demented and suffering from delusions.”
“It was. Unfortunately, no one bought it. So now we need to own up. They exist. It’s real. John Q. Public is terrified, and scared citizens are dangerous citizens, MacBride. We need someone to get a handle on this. To calm the public. To see to it that these … creatures are contained, monitored and dealt with.”
She must have given away her gut-level reaction to his words, because he averted his eyes, and added, “As fairly and humanely as is practical, of course.”
“Of course,” she said.
He nodded. “You will act as the conduit between the CIA and the Senate. You’ll gather all the information available and ride herd on the man in charge of this mess, Nash Gravenham-Bail. Freaking mouthful. Rest assured, he isn’t going to accept your involvement easily. You’re going to have to ride him hard, do your own digging, know when he’s holding back and how much and push for more.”
“Get him to tell me everything. I understand.”
Rafe Polenski shook his head. “Gravenham-Bail will never tell you everything. But get as much as you can. Bring the rest of us up to speed, put together your committee members and with them, come up with a plan of action for us to consider.”
She blinked three times, shook her head and looked away.
“Well? What do you have to say?”
She drew a breath, opened her mouth, closed it again and drew another, searching her mind for words as her brain clogged itself up with questions. Clearly no one in their right mind would want to take this on. This was the modern-day equivalent, she thought, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and God knew that hadn’t gone too well. For the Indians, at least.
Vampires. Good God. Vampires.
They were pushing this assignment onto a junior senator from the Midwest. Someone they thought was too naive to know better. Someone easily manipulated, easily controlled. She was none of those things. But she hadn’t been in office long enough for them to realize it. She knew exactly what was happening here. This wasn’t going to succeed, and someone was going to have to take the fall when the shit hit the fan. She had just been appointed to be the one.
She knew all of that.
And she also knew that she couldn’t turn the post down. One did not turn down Senator Rafe Polenski. The man was a legend.
“Well?” he asked, waiting, already knowing her inevitable answer.
She met his calculating eyes, and knew she was well and truly trapped. But maybe knowing what was going on would give her an advantage. Maybe she could outwit the snowy fox himself and live to tell the tale. Maybe she was a little smarter than this old-school, old-boy network member knew.
“Your decision, Senator MacBride?” he asked pointedly.
“Scratch the coffee,” she said. “I’ll have vodka.”
Mount Bliss, Virginia
Jane Hubbard exited a taxi, and stood looking at the front of a massive and beautiful building. Winged angels made of stone flanked the tall, wrought-iron gate, which had opened to let the taxi enter. It had proceeded along a circular drive with a giant fountain in the center, where a statue of the beautiful St. Dymphna stood, holding a lighted oil lamp—with a real flame, no less—in one hand, like something straight out of Aladdin, and a sword in the other. The sword pointed downward, its tip piercing a writhing dragon at her feet, and water spurted upward from the slain serpent, arching gently back down again into the pool below.
The building had once been known as the St. Dymphna Asylum, as attested by those very words engraved into the white stonework above the entry doors, but was now known as the St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital. A more modern sign just beyond the gates said so.
But the place didn’t look modern. It looked a century old. Maybe two. And as comforting as the angels and the saint were, Jane felt a shiver of apprehension when she studied the chain-link fence that enclosed the manicured lawns.
Melinda, at her side, squeezed her hand. “It’ll be like a vacation, right, Mommy?”
“That’s right, honey. That’s right.”
Jane had no reason to mistrust her government. The official who had shown up at her door had been female and kind. She’d known about Melinda’s condition—the rare Belladonna Antigen in her blood. Jane had known, too. She’d known that the condition made her baby bleed like a hemophiliac. She’d known that it made donors extremely hard to find. And she’d known that it meant her daughter, now seven, probably wouldn’t live to see forty.
What she hadn’t known—had never even suspected—was that it made her a favorite target of creatures that were not supposed to exist. Vampires, the federal agent had told Jane, were real. All the hype in the news of late had been true. And while most of the monsters had been killed by the vigilante movement sweeping the nation, there were still some at large. Any human being who possessed the Belladonna Antigen was at very great risk of being victimized by them.
Especially now that humans and vampires were virtually at war.
And so the government had set up a haven for these rare humans, a place where they could go and be protected, cared for and absolutely safe, until this vampire problem was under control.
Jane would do anything to protect her little girl. It was the just the two of them. Had always been. Melinda was special. She was more special than even the government or her own doctors knew. Jane had always protected her.
And that was what she was doing now. Protecting Melinda.
Holding her little girl’s tiny hand, she stepped through the arching, churchlike, wooden double doors of St. Dymphna’s, and wished she could shake the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake.
2
Coastal Maine
Brigit sat in the library of the beautifully restored Maine mansion that had been the home of a pair of vampires who were now among the missing: Morgan and Dante. She thought, however, that the simple fact their home was still standing was a very good sign. If it hadn’t been burned, then their neighbors probably hadn’t yet branded them vampires and decided to murder them in their sleep. No roaming band of vigilantes had yet targeted them.
Morgan’s mortal sister, Max, and her husband, Lou, had lived there, as well. Having an identical twin who was mortal was probably an extremely good cover, Brigit thought. But they had headed for safer ground, not wanting to be accidentally executed, as a great many innocent mortals had been.
Their brethren must consider it collateral damage when they killed their own. If a body remained after the fire, then the victim must have been innocent. If no body was found, the victims had clearly been vampires and burned to ash. That thinking made as much sense as witch dunking. If you drowned, you were innocent. Oops.
The de Silva mansion was empty but intact. The power was still on. The house had heat and indoor plumbing, phone and internet. It was all good. Brigit wished she could stay.
But she had an assignment, and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
As the elders filed in, all of them having changed into dry clothes, and pink with the flush of a recent meal, Brigit waited, wondering what they would have to say to her.
Rhiannon entered first, wearing one of her signature gowns, floor-length, thigh-high slit, plunging neckline. This one was teal-green, a color Brigit hadn’t seen on her before. It went well with her raven hair. She was far more than an elder vampiress. She was Rianikki, a priestess of Isis, daughter of a pharaoh. She knew about magic and could do things no other vampire could.
Behind her came her beloved Roland de Courtemanche in his old-school tux and black satin cloak. Probably unwise of him to keep wearing something that might as well have been a flashing Vampire Here sign, but that was his call. He’d been a medieval warrior knight, was wise beyond questioning and had a fierce side that he kept very well contained.
Eric Marquand, Roland’s best friend, came next. A nobleman, a physician and a scientist, Eric had nearly been beheaded during the French Revolution. Roland had visited him in his cell on the night before he was slated to meet the guillotine, saving his life and making him over.
Sarafina, the beautiful, fiery Gypsy, came last, skirts and scarves trailing, bangles and earrings jingling as she moved. She was the missing Dante’s aunt, but more like a sister to him. And worry marred her brow.
The four sat at a table, embodying more than four thousand years of living, of wisdom, of knowledge. And yet there were some troubling absences among the elders of their kind. Damien, the first vampire, once known as Gilgamesh. The Prince, who had become known as Dracula down through the ages. They’d struck out separately with their respective mates to try to locate survivors and bring them to safety. But it wasn’t safe out there. Not even for them.
Although these ancient mighty beings who surrounded her now had practically raised her, Brigit saw them through fresh eyes on this night. She felt awe at their presence, their power, and found herself bowing her head slightly before taking her own chair at the long table.
It was Rhiannon who began, with a story that Brigit already knew by heart.
“Utanapishtim, Ziasudra, onetime Priest King of the land of Sumer, was beloved of the gods, and so when they sent the great flood to wipe out mankind, he alone was spared. In return for his loyalty, the gods bestowed upon him the gift of immortality. There was only one caveat—he must never attempt to share the gift with any other human.”
Rhiannon fell silent, her gaze sliding, adoringly but solemnly, to Roland, who nodded once and picked up the tale. “The great king Gilgamesh—the man we know today as Damien—was in deep mourning for his best friend, Enkidu, who was more than a brother to him. Enkidu was like the king’s shadow self—like a twin who is opposite and yet the same,” he said, with a meaningful look straight into her eyes.
Brigit understood.
“King Gilgamesh blamed himself for Enkidu’s death. He wanted only to find a way to restore life to his friend. And so he wandered into the desert in search of the only immortal—the flood survivor. And he found him. The king commanded that Utana share the gift of immortality with him, so that he could share it, in turn, with Enkidu.”
Roland stopped there, turning to Sarafina, who took up the thread. “Utana could not refuse his king, and so he gave him the gift. But despite becoming immortal himself, King Gilgamesh could not recover his friend from the Abode of the Dead. And because Utana had disobeyed the gods, he was cursed. His eternal life was taken from him—but his immortality was not. And later, when he was murdered by an evil one, Utana died but did not die. We know now that his spirit remained, trapped with his ashes, lo these five thousand years.”
Eric took over from Sarafina at her gentle nod. “There came to light a prophecy, a stone tablet from Utana’s time, that told of the destruction of the vampire race and suggested that only by raising Utanapishtim from the dead could it be averted. This prophecy spoke of the twins who were neither vampire nor human but both combined, the two who are like no other and yet opposites, who would save our kind. But parts of the tablet were missing. Broken. Hidden away, so its true meaning was unclear.”
Eric then looked at Brigit, holding her eyes until she knew she was supposed to fill in the rest. She cleared her throat, nodding. “And so the good twin, the one who was born with the gift of healing, found Utana’s ashes and restored life to him. But Utana’s mind was warped from thousands of years of imprisonment, and he turned on his own people, decimating the vampire race he had never intended to create. And those who remain believe it is only the evil twin, who was born with the power of destruction, who can return him to the grave—his prison—and save what few remain of vampire-kind.”
Everyone in the room nodded.
Rhiannon spoke again. “Utana believes that he can only be free of his curse by undoing the wrong he committed so long ago. He thinks he has to wipe us out, so that when he dies again, he will move on to the afterlife, rather than returning to the horror of the living death where he spent more than five thousand years.”
“I know.”
“We know very little about his strengths, his powers,” Rhiannon said. “Except that he can blast a beam of light from his eyes that is much like the explosive beam you yourself can project.”
“And that he can take the powers from others,” Brigit added, with a look toward the closed door, beyond which her brother lingered, somewhere, with their parents, Edge and Amber Lily, and the others. “We know that, because he took J.W.’s healing gift away from him.”
Everyone nodded sadly.
“We don’t know how to kill him in a way that will free his spirit,” Roland said softly. “We only know that the first time he died, he was beheaded and his body cremated, at least according to the tablets. And while it grieves all of us to think we might be condemning him—our own forebear—to return to that nightmarish state, he has left us with no other choice.”
Brigit nodded. “I know.”
“We also know,” Eric said, “that he can sense us, feel us, just as we can detect the presence of one another, and of the Chosen. There’s a bond, a connection. We believe that he is using that bond to follow us, even now.”
Brigit frowned; this was the first she’d heard of that. “What makes you think so?”
Eric rose, crossing the room to take a remote control from a nearby shelf and aiming it toward an elaborately carved, antique-looking cherrywood armoire. The armoire’s doors swung open, revealing a large, state-of-the-art flat-screen TV. Eric thumbed another button to turn it on, and another to activate the DVR and choose a local news broadcast from a few hours earlier.
Captioned “Bangor, Maine,” with today’s date beside it, footage panning the interior of a demolished restaurant played out on the screen. Then the scene switched to show a S.W.A.T. team surrounding a delivery truck on a street that had been closed down, as a grim-voiced reporter explained, “An apparently mentally disturbed man trashed Succulence, a four-star restaurant in Bangor, this evening. The assailant took only food, but injured several people and caused enormous damage to the business. Police believe they now have this obviously dangerous man cornered in the back of a delivery truck a few blocks away from the restaurant. This is live coverage of the S.W.A.T. unit, as they slowly close in on the truck and—”
“No,” Brigit said, getting to her feet, talking to the TV as if it would help. “No, no, get them out of there!”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and Roland said, “This is a recording, child. It’s already happened.”
The cops took cover and took aim, as someone lifted a bullhorn to order the man to come out with his hands up.
Brigit watched as the truck doors opened and Utana appeared. She’d seen the man before, but never looking like he did then. His makeshift garment—a toga made from a bed sheet—was torn, wet and filthy, his long black hair hanging in dripping straggles, his face shadowed by a wild-looking beard, his eyes dangerous.
He looked like she imagined Moses had, after his encounter on Mount Sinai.
And then she could see nothing but the beam that emanated from his eyes just before the picture went to snow. The screen flicked back to the somber, too-tanned face of an anchor at the news desk. “Our camera crew survived, and though they got additional footage, we can’t show you more, out of respect for the families of the seventeen officers who were wiped out by whatever unknown weapon this madman was wielding. Frankly, it’s just too gruesome for television. The man is still at large, and the National Guard has been called in to help with the hunt.”
Brigit stared at the screen long after Eric had shut off the television.
“You have to stop him, Brigit.”
She nodded. “And what are all of you going to do? You can’t stay here. He’s too close. He won’t stop until he finds you.”
“We’re moving,” Roland said. “The plantation in Virginia is isolated enough in the Blue Ridge Mountains that it should be safe … at least for a little while. We don’t want to go too far until we’ve eliminated this threat and gathered as many of our own together as we can find. After that, we’ll likely be forced to leave the country for a location more remote and isolated than anything the U.S. has to offer in this day and age. We’re exploring several options now. But that’s not for you to worry about.”
“You have only one task to focus on,” Rhiannon said. “Find the first immortal. Find him … and kill him.”
Downtown Bangor, Maine
Utana had sensed the soldiers surrounding his temporary haven. All he had wanted was a meal, and a dry place in which to eat it. And he’d found both, though he had been surprised by the resistance of the food vendors when it came to sharing their bounty. Taking it by force had seemed ridiculous. Did they not realize he was a king? He had left the establishment in a mess, but it would be easily restored. He’d broken a table, perhaps some of the strange pottery food-vessels, as well. He’d had to use force on some of the humans. The mortals. That was what James of the Vahmpeers had called the ordinary ones. Mortals. Utana had intended them no harm, had used no more force than was necessary.
Well, perhaps a bit more than was necessary. He’d been agitated. And half-starved.
But then he’d found a shelter and filled his belly with the food, and he had never eaten its equal. Never. It was luscious, fit for the gods. He’d found a comfortable spot in the corner of the box that contained him, and he’d curled up, intent on napping, despite the fact that his clothes were still wet and he was shivering with cold.
And then, just as he’d been about to nod off into the world of dream journeys, he’d felt them all around him. He’d felt their fear of him, their hatred and their intentions. His punishment for taking a meal without compensation was to be death, it seemed. They carried weapons, he sensed it. And he knew by the vibrations in the very ether between them and himself that those weapons would be used on him without hesitation.
Yes. There was no question. He felt it. Violence. Barely contained, crouching like a tiger about to spring.
And so he had no choice. He wanted nothing from these humans. He meant them no harm whatsoever. It was his own race he must wipe from existence, not theirs. All he intended was to eat, to sleep and to be on his way. This devastation he was about to unleash was entirely their own doing.
Sighing in resolution, and with no small regret, he had opened the doors of his haven and meted out justice. He’d focused the beam from his eyes on the men who leveled their weapons at him. The light shot forth, a blue-white stream that widened, opening like the wings of a great, deadly bird, so that all of them were caught in it. The soldiers went still as the beam hit them. Their eyes widened as their bodies began to vibrate, frozen within the grasp of his power and unable to break free. And then, one by one, they exploded.
When it was over, an eerie calm fell over everything around him. The silent stillness of death. It was like no other emanation. When the souls fled the bodies of the living, especially in such massive numbers all at once, they left a vacuum behind. A space devoid of sense, of sound, almost of air.
Utana stepped down from the box-on-wheels, and he walked amid the remains. True carnage, this. Pieces of the humans littered the stone like ground, and hung from the motorized vehicles and the tall, light-emitting poles, and from the lines that seemed to be strung everywhere in this world. It was a terrible waste of life, and all for nothing.
As he looked at the death and mutilation around him, he thought of the healing power he had taken from James of the Vahmpeers. He had not yet attempted to use it, but he had no illusions that it would be effective on bits and pieces of men. He would first have to sort them, leaving none out, nor mixing any together. Such a task would be impossible, and would take days—weeks, perhaps—even to attempt. No, it was of no use. Were they not meant to die this day, they would not have placed themselves in his path. The higher being knew far more than did the earthly one. Their fate had been sealed; there was no undoing it.
He picked his way among the limbs and gore, amid the tiny fires dancing from their motor-driven conveyances, and the smoke spiraling all around him. He saw more humans, watching from a safe distance, and he felt only fear and terror coming from them—no attack. Pausing, Utana bent low to scoop up a dead man’s weapon. And as he held it, he closed his eyes briefly and absorbed its vibration through his palms. It took only seconds for him to understand how the weapon worked, how to use it, what it did. And so he gathered up a few more before moving on.
More soldiers would come after him. No army would let so many deaths go unavenged. He had not wanted war with the humans, but it seemed inevitable now.
His bare feet were cold as they slapped down on the wet stonelike substance with which modern man had apparently paved the world. The rain was lighter now. He would find clothing and shelter, a base of operations from which to work. The vahmpeers had moved to somewhere not far from this place. But they would know of his nearness now. Word of his deeds this night would surely spread. And then they would flee. If he hoped to catch up to them, to wipe them from existence, he had to find them before they did.
Washington, D.C.
“You can go in now, Senator,” the curly haired receptionist said.
Marlene MacBride rose from the vinyl chair she’d been warming for the past twenty minutes, smoothed her pencil-slim skirt over her thighs and strode to the door. She was staring at the plaque that adorned it. Special Agent Nash Gravenham-Bail. As she lifted a hand to tap before entering, the door swung open, and she glimpsed a broad torso and a large file box coming toward her.
The box bumped her chest before she had a chance to move out of the way. She automatically gripped it, and the man behind it spoke.
“Senator MacBride. Sorry about the wait, but I think you’ll find everything you need in here. Enough to get you started, at least.”
Marlene lifted her stunned eyes from the box to the face of the man shoving it at her. It was the scar that caught her attention, as she would guess it did most people’s upon meeting this man for the first time. It was a thin pink line, raised a bit, that began at the outside corner of his left eye and angled across his cheek to the center of his chin.
“Line of duty,” he said. “Besides, it’s intimidating. That’s a bonus in my line of work.”
She shifted her focus from his scar to his eyes. Wet cement, they were. “Mr. Gravenham-Bail?”
“It’s a mouthful, I know,” he said. “I still cuss my parents out on a daily basis for the hyphenated name thing. I mean, really, just pick one already. Make a decision.”
She nodded.
“Easier if you just call me Nash.”
“Mmm.” He still hadn’t let her into his office. She was standing in the doorway, holding a box that was getting heavier by the minute, and getting absolutely nowhere with him. “Look, Nash, I was expecting a meeting with you. So you could brief me on all this.”
“Oh, really? I thought you’d want documents. Files.”
“Well, those, too, but—”
“Look if you want a meeting, we’ll set one up. Week after next?”
“I’m afraid that—”
“Barbara,” he called, and started moving forward. Marlene had to either back up or let him walk right into her. He backed her into the reception area, pulling his office door closed behind him. “Barbara, schedule me a sit-down with the senator, here, for the next free afternoon I have. A full hour. And, uh, get someone to help her down with this file box, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Nice meeting you, Senator MacBride. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
He extended a hand to shake, looked sheepishly at the box that was occupying both of hers, then turned and was back in his office, door closed, before she could say boo. Hell, this wasn’t going well at all.
Nash closed his office door, counted to sixty and picked up the phone. “Babs, she gone yet?”
“The elevator doors just closed on her, sir.”
“Great. Get me a flight to Maine. Bangor, or as close to there as possible.”
“Right away, sir.”
Nash needed to get his hands on this resurrected monster, get him under control. He would not rest until every last vampire was obliterated. If even one remained, they would make others. Like damn lice. They were parasites. You had to pick ’em clean to end the infestation. And you had better get their eggs, too, unless you wanted to start the process all over again. In this case, that meant the so-called Chosen. Humans with the rare antigen in their blood that made them susceptible to the disease the Undead had dubbed the Dark Gift. It wasn’t a gift. It was a freaking mutation. The only humans who could become vampires were the carriers of the Belladonna Antigen, so they would have to be eliminated, too. As soon as they’d served their purpose.
The Dymphna Project would take care of that. And by the time pesky Senator MacBride waded through the paperwork mountain he’d handed her, it would all be over.
But in order for his plan to work, he needed to find this Utanapishtim, this madman from another age, another world. He had to win the man’s trust, so he could wield him like the weapon Nash intended him to be.
And then, when the war was over and humans were victorious, he would destroy the so-called immortal last of all, and end the age of the vampires for all time.
He was going to save mankind from the scourge of the Undead. And no junior senator from Nebraska was going to get into his way. No matter how good she looked in a skirt.
St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital Mount Bliss, Virginia
Roxanne was the nurse on check-in duty on the day the odd little girl and her mother arrived at St. Dymphna.
And as it turned out, that was a damned good thing. Then again, she’d never believed in coincidence.
Roxy had been a friend to the vampires all her life. And her life was a long one. Longer than most of the folks who carried the Belladonna Antigen in their blood. They were known as the Chosen, and word was, they didn’t live to see forty.
She’d seen a hell of a lot more than forty, but she wouldn’t admit how much more. Not under torture. Besides, age was just a number.
Roxy had no desire to become a vampire. But she damn well wasn’t going to stand by and watch them get wiped out of existence, either. Her vamp friends had been good to her. Saved her wrinkle-free hide more than once.
So when she got notification from Uncle Sam that she was to report to some out-of-commission loony bin with all the other Chosen, to be protected from vampire attack, she knew it was time to take action.
Vampires didn’t prey on the Chosen. They were like spooky-ass guardian angels to them. Couldn’t help themselves. One of her kind got into trouble, one of their kind showed up to bail them out. Usually did a little oogly-boogly mind shit on the way out, just to erase the memory and keep their cover intact.
Vamps weren’t the only ones who could play oogly-boogly mind games.
Roxy had made herself disappear. As far as the government knew, she was on the run, avoiding compliance with their summons, while in truth she was right under their noses, with a false ID and a freshly minted nursing license, working as an R.N. at St. Dymphna’s. Forged paperwork, a little witchcraft—yeah, she was a card-carrying spell-caster—and bam, she was hired.
And she was damned glad to be in the place, too, that day when she greeted the newest guests, Jane and Melinda Hubbard, at the front door.
The mom and daughter looked like two photos of the same person taken twenty years apart. And they looked scared, too.
“Hey, now. There’s no call to look like that,” Roxy said. “Know why?”
Melinda stared at her, huge blue eyes seeing right through her, she thought. “Why?” the little girl asked.
Hell, the kid’s gaze was so intense it sent a little shiver up Roxy’s spine. But she shook it off and smiled. “Because I’m here. And I’m going to give you my personal promise that nothing bad will happen to you while you’re here. You’re gonna be my special friends. And no one messes with Roxy’s friends. Okay?”
Jane smiled a little, hugging her daughter closer.
“She’s like me, Mommy,” Melinda said softly.
Roxy felt her smile die as Jane shot her a look. Quickly Roxy glanced around to make sure no one else had heard, and then she knelt down to put herself at eye level with the little girl. “I am like you,” she whispered. “But that has to be our little secret, okay? No one else can know.”
“Why?”
Roxy swallowed hard. She had not intended to tell these people—nor any of the other captives—who or what she was. It was too dangerous. Now she had a seven-year-old apparent psychic to contend with.
Roxy bent closer. “I might get into trouble if you tell. Okay, honey? You know how to keep a secret, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.” Melinda eyed Roxy up and down. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell.” Then looking up at her mother, she said, “She’s good.”
Roxy’s brows went up. There was definitely more to this little girl than the antigen they shared. Speaking at a more normal volume, she said, “I’m gonna find you guys the nicest room in this place. Come on with me now. We’re all up on the fourth floor.”
As they headed for the elevators, Jane leaned in close. “What’s going on around here, Roxy?”
Roxy glanced up and to the right, where the wall met the ceiling, meaning in her eyes. And she knew when Jane followed her gaze and spotted the camera mounted there. “Eyes and ears, hon,” she whispered, a big, fake smile on her face. “Everywhere.”
Jane nodded and lowered her head, face averted from the camera. “I’m just trying to find out if it’s safe here for my daughter.”
“Should have done that before you brought her here,” Roxy said.
“Then we’re leaving.” Jane started to turn away toward the big entry door.
Roxy clasped her arm, and squeezed hard enough to get her attention and stop her in her tracks. “They won’t let you leave. You didn’t notice the armed guards walking the perimeter? The electric fence around this entire place? You’re here now. And you’ll have to stay here.”
“But—”
“No buts. No choice.” The elevator doors slid open as Roxy released the woman’s arm but continued to hold her eyes. Her false smile had vanished, and she realized it and pasted it back on again. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you both. And when the time is right, I’ll get you out of here.”
“That’s why you’re keeping your … condition … secret?”
Roxy nodded as she hustled them into the elevator. “You want the zoo cages left unlocked, best have a monkey posing as a zookeeper, don’t you think? Now come on. You blow my cover, we’re all done for. And for heaven’s sake, smile. You’ve gotta look like you’re glad to be here. All right?”
“All right.”
They stepped inside, all three of them, and the elevator doors slid closed. As they rode upward, Roxy added, in a very soft whisper, “Don’t let them know she’s different. That would be … bad.”
The mother shifted her blue eyes to the little girl, who stood between the two adults, her knapsack on her back, a teddy bear peeking from the top. Tears shimmered in Jane’s eyes, but she blinked them away and tightened her grip on her daughter’s tiny hand.
3
Bangor, Maine
Brigit smelled death in the air. Death, grief, violence. And something more. She was standing above a demolished street in downtown Bangor, Maine. There was a taste to the night, a scent and a feeling. It smelled this way after lightning struck. After an electrical transformer had blown up, or after a breaker box had short-circuited.
And after she had used her power to blow something to bits.
She would have known what had happened here simply by that smell, even if she hadn’t seen the news reports with her own eyes.
The streets were blocked off. Cops wearing black armbands in honor of their dead stood sentry at every possible access point. But they hadn’t covered the rooftops. Local law enforcement agencies had a lot to learn about the Undead—and their mongrel kin.
Brigit stood on the roof of a hardware store, looking down at the mayhem. Burned-out vehicles, scattered debris. There were still body parts here and there, missed by the EMTs and the crews from the coroner’s office, no matter how thorough they thought they had been. She could smell them. Charred meat had a distinctive aroma, and charred human meat had one all its own. It wasn’t pleasant.
Her nose wrinkled, and she averted her face, closing her eyes against the onslaught of remembered images. But she couldn’t stop the nightmarish scene from playing out in her mind just as it had so recently played out for real on the streets below her. She was too close, her mind too open. She saw the entire encounter play out in her mind’s eye. Utana big and so powerful, but more utterly alone than any man had ever been, cold, wet and shivering in the delivery truck, devouring the stolen food with relish. She felt his awareness of being surrounded, his confusion as to why the humans would want to harm him when his goal was the same as theirs. To exterminate the vampires.
She felt his anger, and she felt, too, his reluctance to do what he had to do—followed slowly by his bitter acceptance of it. He believed the humans had left him no other choice. He believed it completely.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, willing the images away, but they played out all the same. The beam blasting forth from Utana’s eyes. The men—innocent men—being blown literally to pieces. And despite the horror of it, Brigit found herself compelled to examine the images more closely. How had he widened out the beam that way? She couldn’t do that. She had to blow up one thing at a time. How had he managed to broaden its scope to include a wide range of targets all at once? She’d never been able to achieve such a thing.
Hell, if he was more powerful than she was …
No, she wouldn’t think that way. He might be stronger, but she was smarter, faster, more at home in the here and now. Not to mention that she was sane. Oh, she supposed there were some who would debate that, given her hair-trigger temper. But she was at least saner than he was, this man who’d been buried alive for more than fifty centuries.
It wasn’t his fault he was out of his freaking mind, she thought. But that thought, too, she shoved aside.
She started to turn, intending to track him down by following the essence he left in his wake, but then she paused, brought to halt by the vision still unfolding in her head.
Utana himself, his wet bedsheet toga dragging the ground, his long black hair clinging to his powerful shoulders and rain-damp chest, climbing down from the truck and walking slowly among the dead. She felt the waves of regret washing over him with so much force that they left him weak. She felt the tears burning in his eyes. And there were, inexplicably, answering tears welling up in her own.
And then, from directly behind her, he said, “Do you see? The humans—they gave me no choice.”
Her head came up fast, chills racing up her spine at his presence. How? How had he snuck up on her like that? Why hadn’t she felt his approach as she would feel the approach of anyone—mortal or vampire? Had he learned to block his vibrations from others? And at such close range? Impossible.
She turned to face him, trying to erase any hint of fear from her expression. Her eyes were level with his massive chest, and she had to tip her head back to focus on his face.
He met her eyes, and his flashed with recognition. “Brigit. The sister of James.”
“Yes.”
He lowered his head, perhaps unable to hold her gaze, and she sensed he might be ashamed of what he had done. “You are sent for to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me of your brother and his Lucy. Are they …?”
“They’re fine.”
Unmistakable and unspeakable regret flashed in the depths of his gleaming jet-black eyes. “I wish not to harm you, sister of James.”
“Don’t worry, Utana. You won’t.”
He blinked twice, a frown appearing between his brows. But as he lifted his head and met her eyes again, she saw something more there. A hint of a spark. Perhaps he was rising to the challenge.
“I wish there were another way,” she said. “I hate having to do this to you.”
He almost smiled as he repeated her own words back to her. “Don’t worry, Brigit. You won’t.” And then his teeth bared in a full-on grin. He was very pleased with himself, no doubt at his flawless repetition, right down to the inflection and tone.
She lifted a hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb, as he spun and raced across the rooftop, putting some distance between them. She focused on him, flicked her fingers open and released the powerful, deadly beam from her eyes.
As if he felt it coming, Utana tucked and rolled, dodging the flash of laser like light. The chimney behind him exploded. Bricks flew like enormous pieces of shrapnel, but he blocked them with one arm, even as he turned and fired a beam from his own eyes in her general direction.
Brigit dove out of the way, and Utana’s blast of energy blew past her and kept going until it hit a window across the street, shattering it.
Below, the workers cleaning up after the massacre scrambled for cover. People shouted from their crouched positions, looking up and pointing.
From behind a vent fan, Brigit launched another bolt of destructive energy, then raced to the rear of the building. Even as he shot a beam back at her, she jumped, plummeting downward and landing hard in a low crouch that did little to absorb the teeth-jarring impact.
Springing upright again, she ran. Her feet pounded the pavement as she poured on every ounce of human speed she possessed, eager to lead Utana away from anyone who might be harmed in the cross fire. Not that there was any love lost between her and humankind. But her vampire family would frown on unnecessary bloodshed.
Except for Aunt Rhiannon, of course. She would love it.
Brigit dashed down an alley, trying hard to tune out the stench coming from the trash bins as she did. Behind her, she heard Utana land barefoot on the pavement, and an instant later he was hurling power after her like Zeus hurling lightning bolts after an unrepentant sinner, as she zigged and zagged to avoid being blown to bits.
Ducking behind a building, she pressed her back to the brick, panting hard to catch her breath. But not for long. She popped her head out just long enough to return fire, then jerked it back behind the wall again. Once, twice, three times. Each blast of power sucked more vital energy from her. More life force. More strength. She wondered if it was the same for him.
Peering out from behind the building once more, she didn’t see him, so she made a dash for the edge of town.
He followed, no longer firing, just running.
Yes, she thought. Using his power of destruction must drain him, too. And he’d annihilated many already tonight. She had the advantage. Except that she was pretty sure he’d been stronger to begin with.
Running onward, she knew she needed more speed, more force. Though it would rob her of precious energy, she paused to call her vampiric self up to the surface. Her jaw began to pulse and throb as her incisors elongated themselves, and her entire body prickled with newly heightened sensation. And then, fully vamped out, she ran full bore. The preternatural burst of speed would, she knew, make her appear as no more than a blur in the eyes of a human.
And, she hoped, in the eyes of the first immortal, as well.
Miles melted away, but Brigit didn’t stop until she stood in a wooded glen. There was a pond. There were trees. A nearly full moon hung low in the sky. It would be dawn soon. Leaning against a tree, she hung her head, caught her breath, let her body return to her more natural state. Her fangs retracted. Her skin felt almost numb in comparison to the heightened sensitivity of vampire flesh and nerve.
“I will wait until … you make ready.”
She straightened, spun. And there he stood, tall and straight and barely winded. “God,” she muttered.
“Utana,” he corrected. “You are … powerful warrior. Strong. Smart. I expected not such challenge from one so beautiful.”
“Don’t try to distract me with empty flattery, Utana. It won’t work.”
He frowned, tipping his head to one side as if trying to understand the meaning of her words. “I ask again—do not make me kill you, woman.”
She met his eyes, then had to look away. They were black as night, deep and full of misery. “You murdered dozens of my people.”
“All my years—as priest, as king, as soldier, as flood survivor, as immortal—all my years, I tell you, never did I kill when I was able to find another way. But—this time, no choice was I given. The will of the Anunaki must be obeyed.”
She felt his heart twisting with his words, as if he were holding back an emotional storm. There was pain in this man, and she hated that she could feel it. She didn’t know why, and wished it would go away, so she tried to close her mind to his. “There has to be another way,” she whispered.
“Another way, yes. A living death for me. I want only release, Brigit of the Vahmpeers. Release for the vahmpeers, as well. To release from the curse of living as demons, hated by the gods, forced to exist on the power of mortal blood. It is damnation for them. You cannot see with the wisdom of one as old as I, woman. But I remove your peoples’ curse as I remove my own. I wish only to join them in the Land of the Dead, where we will make our peace. I cannot know that blessed release until I obey the will of the gods and destroy the last of the vahmpeers.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Yes, I fear it is so.” He sent a blast, but she felt it coming.
And even as she lunged out of the line of fire, she realized with stunning clarity that she had known he was going to blast her before he had made a move.
That apparent psychic bond she’d been cursing only seconds earlier had enabled her to read him.
She hid behind a fragrant pine, hands braced on its sticky trunk, and she tried not to think before acting. She decided she would attack on impulse, without a plan, while reading his intentions as they formed.
Popping out from behind the tree, she fired and scored a direct hit. The beam slammed the big man in his abdomen, the force of it bending him in two and launching him backward through the air. He hit a boulder and sank to the ground, only to roll to the side as she sent a second shot.
She ducked as he shot back. Her pine tree cover, five feet behind her by then, blew apart and went crashing to the forest floor, forming a huge barrier between her and Utana. Dashing to another cluster of trees, Brigit shot again, blindly this time, and then she ran on.
It must have looked, from above, as if an invisible giant were stomping across the forest, each step snapping trees as if they were toothpicks.
And yet no further hits were scored. He pursued her, his pain washing over her in waves that were almost as debilitating to her as they must have been to him. God, why did she feel him so powerfully?
He was getting closer. Brigit turned, lifted a hand to fire and felt an enormous force, like gravity times ten, pulling her straight to her knees. She shot all the same, but he sidestepped the blast and walked slowly toward her.
Lifting her head, she watched him approach. She raised her hand, palm up, but for the life of her she could not generate enough energy for more than a slight flash from her eyes. It made a popping sound as it crested in the air between them.
Utana reached her and then sank to his knees, as well, facing her. They knelt there, as close as they could be without touching. Their eyes met, locked. “I can … fight … no more,” he whispered.
“Neither can I.”
Three panting breaths, and then his hand cupped the back of her head and he brought her face to his, smashing his mouth to hers, kissing her with all he had. Several days’ beard brushed soft against her chin, and they tumbled to the ground, limbs entwined, as fire burned in Brigit’s veins and she wondered just what the hell had come over her—over him.
Exhaustion won out over passion in the end. Their kiss, though heated, began to cool, as, wrapped up in each other, they sank into an exhausted slumber on the floor of the decimated forest.
When Brigit stirred some hours later, the sun was beating down. The birds were singing a riotous chorus.
And Utana was gone.
She got to her feet and stood in silence, absently brushing the leaves and twigs from her clothes, and turning in a slow circle. But he was nowhere near. She didn’t feel him anymore.
She relived the battle, her mind replaying every blast she’d sent and every one he’d returned. She walked back through the forest, noting where she’d been standing, running, diving, with the benefit of clear-minded hindsight.
Swallowing hard, she shook her head. He could have had her. At least three different times, she realized, she’d been exposed. An easy target, her back to him. And he’d sent bolts of power, not at her, but at nearby trees, toppling them.
He could have killed her. But he hadn’t.
And then she relived that kiss. That earth-shattering, mind-blowing kiss.
“Damn, what am I doing?” She pushed a hand through her hair, and closed her eyes.
Utana had managed to force his eyes open before the sun rose. Pain still throbbed in his body from the single blow she had landed in their battle of the night before. And yet, as he’d studied the beautiful woman in his arms, he was overcome with feelings that were counter to his purpose. He told himself that it was little more than the natural urge to possess her. That any man would feel the same. It was only nature. He was male, she was female. And he wanted to take her, there on the floor of the wooded glen.
And yet, from within, came the knowledge that he denied and refused to hear. The same knowledge that had held him back from destroying her, and had made him hurl his bolts far from her soft and pleasing form.
Passion he could understand. Tenderness? For his enemy? No, that would not do. And while he wanted her, and thought she might not object too strongly should he take her, he held back. He told himself that it was because to mount her here and now would mean to stir her to wakefulness. And then the battle between them would no doubt begin again. And he was still in more pain than he cared to be—for a fight.
She was no ordinary woman. Perhaps she would not be owned. Indeed, according to James, women in this strange world were equal to men and able to choose. He’d thought it a joke. But truly, he had never known a woman like this one. She might very well be the equal of any man he’d ever known. At least in battle.
Perhaps in passion, as well. The kiss they had shared had been as eagerly returned as received. And fiery, too.
But no, he had a mission—a mission of the utmost urgency, assigned him by the Anunaki. He’d suffered too much at their hands to give up on the task they had given him. And truly, there must be just cause. The gods would not order the destruction of an entire race unless it were truly necessary.
He could not doubt them. He had to do as they decreed. He would not defy them again, for the suffering he had known for doing so once—just once—had been beyond human endurance. Should he cross them again, he could not even imagine what punishments might await him.
And so it was that he eased himself from the embrace of the sleeping female and rose carefully to his feet. For a moment he stood looking down at her as she slept, one hand pressed to his belly, where the skin was burned to black. Her hair was the color of sunlight. Pale yellow gold, and there were leaves of green and gold clinging to its curls. Her eyes, closed now, were the most unusual eyes he had ever seen. His people, all he had known, had eyes the color of onyx stone. Black eyes, to match their hair and their brows. But Brigit—she had eyes like the eyes of Enlil, the God of Air and Sky. Palest blue, with rims of black outlining the color. Her eyes seemed as if they could see through him.
Wise, she was.
Perhaps her words ought to be heeded.
No. She was woman, working on his resolve as only a woman could do. He tore himself away and began trekking through the forest. He needed to distance himself from the beautiful warrioress Brigit, because when near her, he could sense nothing else. Even his pain faded beneath the onslaught of that which was her. Her scent, her vitality. With distance, he would once again be able to home in on the essence of the surviving vahmpeers and resume his pursuit of them.
He hated the task that lay before him. He resented the gods for putting it upon him. And yet he dared not refuse.
Miles later, though, it was still Brigit he felt even as he emerged from the forest onto a road. She had filled his senses, leaving room for nothing else. He was in terrible condition. His clothing, the white robe James had called “toga” was filthy. Dry now, at least. But filthy. His body likewise.
He paused then, beside the road, and tipped his head up to the heavens. “I have no offering to proffer,” he said in his own tongue. The new one still felt awkward to him, despite his ability to learn facts by touching objects. “Yet I beg of you, ancient and mighty ones—take this task from me. Allow my offspring to live. Free me of this curse. Surely I have suffered long enough.”
He closed his eyes and waited for a sign. When none came, he sighed, resolved, and tried again. “If you will not relieve me of this mission, then at least provide me with the means to achieve it. I require shelter. Clothing. Food.”
Again he closed his eyes, and waited.
He did not have to wait long. One of the humans’ mechanized carts rolled to a stop beside him, and even as he stood there watching, a man got out. He was tall and very lean, and his eyes were the color of pale stone. He bore a battle scar upon his face that spoke of power. Utana recognized the man—had met him once before. The man emerged from the cart—car, Utana corrected himself mentally—and stood facing him.
As Utana stared at the man, preparing himself to blast him should he move aggressively, the newcomer dropped to one knee, genuflecting, lowered his head and said, “Oh, great and mighty King Ziasudra. It is indeed an honor to kneel before you.”
Utana felt his brows lift. The rush of pleasure at hearing his old name, even spoken in such a terrible accent, and at being addressed as was befitting a king, was tinged by doubt and suspicion.
But he withheld judgment, watchful and wary. “Rise, mortal, and tell me what you want of me.”
The scar-faced man lifted his head but did not rise. “Better to ask what you want of me. Do you remember me, my lord?”
“You were held captive by Brigit of the Vahmpeers. You were among those she called … vi-gi-lants.”
“Vigilantes, yes. And it was you who set me free. You saved my life, my king. And now I can finally repay that debt. If you will allow it.”
Utana shrugged. “What do you want of me?”
“You are the Ancient One, the flood survivor, Utanapishtim, are you not? The first immortal? Beloved of the gods?”
Utana narrowed his eyes on the human. “I am. But that does not tell me who you are, nor how you know these things that few mortals of your time know.”
“My name is Nash Gravenham-Bail,” the man said. “I have been awaiting your coming, which was foretold to the leaders of my nation. I am a powerful man within my government, my king. But as of right now, I am your servant, sent to tend to you on behalf of my president.”
Utana frowned. The leaders of this world knew of his resurrection? “I know not … pres-ee-dent.”
“It’s our word for king.”
“Ah.” Then the king of this land knew of him, as well?
“Will you come with me?” the man went on, still down on one knee. “I have a house for you. Food. Clothing. All you require and more.”
“Why?” Utana asked. “Why wish you … to help me, human?”
The man lowered his eyes. “I don’t blame you for being suspicious of me, my friend. The truth is, my president and I have no love for the vampires you’ve come to destroy. He wishes to honor you as is befitting a ruler, even one from another time.”
“And you?” Utana asked.
The man bowed his head. “I, too, believe in the old gods, the Anunaki. Enki, Enlil, the great Anu, the fierce Inanna. I, too, wish to do their will, to solicit their blessings in this world where few even know their names. Helping you will give me a way to please them. I believe it is what they want of me.” He licked his lips, perhaps nervously. “And as I’ve already said, you saved my life when you freed me from the vampires. And I am deeply grateful for that.”
At last, Utana thought. Something he could understand, something he could relate to. And yet, he must be cautious. This world was not his own, and this human, though they had met before, was still a stranger to him.
He would go with this man, but he would exercise extreme wariness and care. But he was wise and powerful enough, he thought, to risk it. And the rewards of food, of shelter, of a base from which to work while he healed from the painful wound delivered by the lovely warrior woman Brigit, were far too tempting to resist.
“Be it so,” he said to the man. “My vizier, you shall be. Rise, Nashmun,” he went on, giving the man a name he preferred, “and serve me well.” As the man stood upright again, Utana leaned close. He stared intently into the human’s cold gray eyes. “Betray me not, Nashmun. My wrath knows no mercy.”
4
Near Washington, D.C.
At 7:00 a.m., in a truck stop not known for safety, Roxy, wearing a black pageboy wig and large round glasses, along with skintight leggings, a leather jacket and matching boots, sat at a table in the back and waited. She looked like Velma from Scooby-Doo, if Velma had joined a biker gang. The senator came in, looking nervous as hell, and as out of place as a goldfish in a barracuda tank. She clicked through the place in her sensible two-inch navy blue pumps that matched her blazer that matched her skirt, looking around in the most obvious manner possible.
“Shit,” Roxy muttered. She quickly got up and made her way past the crowd of patrons, mostly large men and a few large women, talking loudly, chugging coffee and eating meals big enough to feed a small third-world village. She gripped the senator by the forearm and leaned in close. “Could you be more obvious?”
With a sharp look her way, the senator frowned. “Are you—”
“Endora,” Roxy said. She’d had to pick a phony name when she’d emailed the senator, and her favorite TV witch had seemed like a good enough choice. “We need to make this fast.”
“I’m all for that.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“Yes.”
Roxy stopped walking, sent her a look.
“My private security guy, the guy who screens my email. And no one else. I wasn’t going to come here alone.”
Roxy glanced toward the entry, a big glass door.
“He took the limo around back, but I can get him back here fast if needed.”
“Gave you a panic button, did he?”
The senator averted her eyes. “Your message said this was about my new committee post. That you have information I need. What is it?”
She was a pretty thing, Roxy thought. And she had that idealistic fire in her eyes she’d glimpsed before in young politicians. Before they’d been around long enough to have it extinguished by the good ol’ boys who wanted to keep the status quo.
“This way.”
The two made their way to the table in the back, and Roxy slid into her chair and shoved a mug of coffee across the table. “I ordered for you.”
“I prefer tea.”
“You drink coffee today.”
Roxy sipped her own, and the senator followed suit. Without further delay, Roxy said, “There’s a former mental hospital called St. Dymphna’s in Mount Bliss, Virginia, that’s been commandeered by the DPI. You know about the DPI, right?”
The senator blinked rapidly, lowered her eyes. “I’m afraid that’s—”
“Classified. I know that. Look, Ms. MacBride, I don’t need you to tell me anything. I already know. I’m just trying to determine how much you know.”
“I … know a lot.”
“Not as much as you think, I’ll bet, so I’ll start at the beginning, and that’s the DPI. Division of Paranormal Investigations. A black ops division of the CIA in charge of investigating vampires. It’s been committing the kinds of crimes against other living beings over the past couple of centuries that make Saddam Hussein look like Mother Theresa. Only difference being their victims were vampires. Not humans.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she searched Roxy’s.
“Yeah, I can see that’s something you didn’t know. Well, here’s the thing. Right now they’re rounding up all the human beings with the Belladonna Antigen and stashing them in St. Dymphna’s.”
The senator swallowed hard. “Humans with the antigen have been targeted by … vampires more than any other group of—”
“That’s bullshit. Propaganda. Who told you that?”
“It’s part of the research I was given by—”
“Research. Their research has been done by capturing perfectly innocent people who happen to be vampires and torturing them. Killing them. Experimenting on them.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or why you think I’d believe—”
She’d started to get up, but Roxy gripped her wrist and jerked her back into her seat. “Humans with the Belladonna Antigen are the only ones capable of becoming vampires. Vampires sense them, and are compelled to watch over and protect them—even if it’s to their own detriment. They can’t help themselves. They’re incapable of harming the Chosen, which is what they call those people.”
Senator MacBride held Roxy’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m the oldest living person with the antigen,” Roxy told her. “I’m sure. Vampires have saved my life many times over the years, and I’ve seen them do the same for others. They’re my friends. Not evil. Not monsters. And no matter what the DPI tells you, those humans being rounded up and stuck in that asylum are not there for their own protection.”
“Then why …?”
“I don’t know. But whatever the reason, you can bet it isn’t good. You need to look into this.”
The senator nodded. “I will.”
“Don’t take too long.” Roxy pushed away from the table, dragged a twenty from her pocket and slapped it down. Then she headed for the restroom at the end of a long narrow hallway in the back. Glancing behind her to make sure she was unobserved, she ducked into the men’s room, rather than the women’s, and moved quickly into the second stall. Unseen. Perfect. She pulled large jeans and a pillow for padding out of the bag she’d stashed there earlier, switched her jacket for a bigger one, ditched the wig and glasses, donned a moustache and beard, pulled on a billed cap with a bulldog logo on the front, and headed out again. She walked right by the senator on her way out, and the woman didn’t even give her a second glance. She was on the phone, probably with her security guy.
Outside, Roxy saw what had to be the senator’s car pulling to a stop. Off to one side a man in a long dark coat stood watching. Not the senator’s bodyguard. Someone else.
Roxy had known this was dangerous. She was glad she’d taken the precautions she had. Because either Senator Marlene MacBride was being watched …
… or she was.
Near Bangor, Maine
Brigit stood high on the hilltop, overlooking the winding road below, and watched as Utana spoke with a tall male mortal. The man’s back was toward her, and she observed only that he was thin and wearing a brown “duck” type coat against the chill of the early morning. He drove a big SUV, dark green in color. It fit in here, just as his coat did. Perhaps he was a local. One of those bleeding heart, trusting types who took in strangers.
The idiot didn’t know what kind of power he was playing with. Or what kind of danger. Utana was a time bomb. A killing machine with a warped mind.
There’s so much more to him than that.
Now where had that thought come from?
Utana’s face was visible in the early-morning sun. She’d deliberately stayed far enough away that she hoped he wouldn’t sense her, but God knew she could still sense him. Not the killing machine part of him, but the man. The man who, she realized, had wept at the sight of all the carnage he’d caused. The man who’d kissed her as if she were the first shelter he’d seen on an endless trek across a burning desert. As if she were his first sip of water.
And she had to kill him.
God, what the hell was wrong with the world, anyway?
She sighed and dragged her attention back to the scene unfolding below. In spite of her mission, she found herself feeling ridiculously glad some Good Samaritan was taking pity on the once great king. Oh, she had no doubt the guy would regret it later, once he realized that Utana was completely off his rocker—a fact the stranger should have picked up on from the simple fact that Utana was wearing a filthy bedsheet like a toga.
Wait, something was happening. The local was opening the passenger side door of his SUV. Holding it as if he expected Utana to get in.
Hell, no, Brigit thought. There was no way he would trust a stranger, much less a mortal one.
Utana turned then, gazing in her direction as if he sensed her there. She sidestepped, ducking behind a bushy-boughed sentinel pine.
And then she heard him, speaking to her with his mind as clearly as if he were standing beside her, saying his words into her ear, his voice deep and resonant and sending chills up her spine.
I will not kill you yet, Brigit of the Vahmpeers. His thoughts were clear, their meaning overriding his broken English. When I have done the rest, I will ask the Anunaki to spare you. Perhaps they will agree.
A red haze of fury rose up in her, and she stepped out from behind the tree. You’ll let me live to see all those I love die before me? And you’re expecting my gratitude for that?
It is all I can do.
He lowered his head, bent low to get into the car.
Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going? Don’t you know better than to trust strangers? Hey!
But he got into the car anyway, and the man closed the passenger door, then went around to the driver’s side and got in. The car moved away, and Brigit had no idea where it was taking her quarry.
She was cold, tired, hungry and pissed. She was frustrated as all hell and wishing for a way to shirk the duty that had fallen to her to carry out. And she had a long walk on her hands, back to Bangor where she’d left her car and her supplies.
But she needed to know where this idiot was taking Utana before she acted on any of those pressing matters. And so she set off on foot, calling on her superhuman—though not quite vampiric—levels of speed and endurance to pull it off.
She followed the SUV to a small no-tell motel on the outskirts of Bangor, grateful that they were at least heading in the same general direction as her car. The two men got out and opened a door a third of the way along the single-story motel. Room 6, she noted.
And then, as she stood there, an aroma turned her head around. There was a diner across the street. Her stomach growled like a pit bull at the smell of used French fry grease. God, she needed food. She didn’t know what was going on in that motel room, but she would have a clear view of it from the diner. She could watch just as easily from a table along the front wall, with a big fat plate of empty calories in front of her, right?
Right.
So she straightened away from the telephone pole she’d been leaning against and walked across the cracked blacktop to the greasy spoon.
She laughed, because that really was the name of the place. The Greasy Spoon.
The bell above the door jangled when she walked in, and a woman said, “Just sit wherever you want, hon. Coffee?”
“Yeah. A gallon or so,” Brigit answered without looking.
Then she slid into a booth along the front, her eyes still on the motel across the street.
A filled coffee mug clunked down in front of her. “Are you the wife, or the P.I. working for the wife?” the waitress asked.
Brigit darted a glance the other woman’s way and got stuck. She’d expected the clichéd red or blond beehive with pencils sticking out. Instead, she saw a careworn face, silver-gray curls and a smoker’s wrinkled upper lip. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re watching that mo-tel like it’s gonna get up and run off if you turn your head. You got a husband having a fling behind your back?”
“Oh.” She got it now. “No, no husband.” She showed off a bare ring finger. “Just a friend I’m going to, uh … surprise.”
“Uh-huh. You want food?”
“Something fast. What’s ready?”
“French toast can be on your plate in ten minutes.”
“Make it five and I’ll double your tip.”
“Deal.”
Four minutes later Brigit was wolfing down a stack of syrup-drenched, piping hot, buttery French toast that was actually pretty damned good.
She slugged down the coffee, getting up and digging in her pockets for cash.
“The breakfast is five bucks honey,” the woman called from behind the counter. “And here’s a coffee to go, on me.” She slid a capped, extra-large cup across the counter.
“Thanks. I’m grateful.” Tossing two fives onto the counter, Brigit grabbed the cup and turned. She needed the caffeine boost. She was blocking her presence from Utana as thoroughly as she could, mentally maintaining an invisible and impenetrable shield around her aura. It was exhausting, and yet vital.
The men were still in the motel room. What the hell were they doing in there?
She left the diner, cup in hand, and glanced up and down the winding road. The motel was covered in white clapboard siding, with brick-red trim, shutters and doors. Each door bore a metallic, gold-toned number. A sidewalk ran along the front, and the semicircular strip of blacktopped parking had room for one vehicle per door.
A smaller, square detached structure bore a sign that said Office.
Behind it, there was a big empty rolling field full of brambles, briars and weeds. And that, she supposed, was where she was going to have to go. Sighing in resignation, she headed up the road until she rounded a bend and was out of sight. Then she jumped the ditch and jogged far enough into the giant weed patch to be invisible, and from there she began making her way back toward the motel.
She emerged from the weeds directly behind it and began counting the windows, trying to match them up with the doors in the front. When she got to the one she thought went with Room 6, she crept closer.
The window was a little too high for her, but she located a loose cinder block beneath the oblong fuel tank in the back, dragged it closer and stood on it. She took a quick peek inside, then ducked down, blinking in shock.
Her eyes had registered the following: Big. Male. Naked. Wet. And effin’ ripped. The makeshift toga had been hiding a chest that made her heart beat faster and a backside that made her knees go weak. Damn.
Drawing a breath, she closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again and peered through the slightly fogged glass one more time.
Utana was standing beside a shower stall, staring at it as if in wonder. He was buck naked, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She had a three-quarter view, and it was the shoulders that got her first. Rippling, bulging, beautiful. Every muscle was visible beneath his smooth, tanned, hairless skin. Then his chest, broad and thick, and then the abs … And as he turned a little more, the blackened section of skin where her blast had hit home. As she focused there, she felt the pain he was still in. He was trying to overcome it, trying to function in spite of it, and, for the most part, he was succeeding in keeping it buried.
He was one powerful man.
Her gaze slid downward—down to his pelvic bones and …
Oh, for the love of … well, it figured he would be hung like a stallion, didn’t it?
She blinked and forced herself to look elsewhere. But it was not safe. His hard butt had just enough curve and dimpled inward at the sides. His thighs were like tree trunks. His calves like banded steel.
God, all right already. She had work to do here.
She had to kill him. She had to destroy that beautiful work of art just beyond the glass. She could probably do it right then. He was so busy staring at the shower, as if he were completely awestruck by the device he’d just made use of. His hair was still wet. He’d shaved at some point. That was probably what had been taking so long. She didn’t imagine his newfound pal had had an easy time showing him how.
Utana dragged a towel from the rack and wiped himself down with it, taking great care on his injured belly.
And then he turned to the sink and twisted the faucets as if for the first time, like a child. As the water ran, he cupped his hands beneath it, and a smile split his face wide. He cranked the faucets off, then back on, then off again.
A moment later he was doing the same with the light switch. On, off, on, off.
Brigit lifted her hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb.
His white teeth were perfect, the joy on his face exquisite, despite his pain. He flicked the light a few more times, then gazed at the toilet. Bending, he picked up the lid and stared inside. His smile faded. A frown drew his glorious black brows together as he studied it, tipping his head this way and that. He lifted the tank lid, peeking inside, and his frown grew deeper. Replacing the tank lid, he hit the handle, and with a whoosh the toilet flushed. He jumped back, eyes going wide, and then that smile reappeared. Closing his eyes, he placed both hands on the tank and closed his eyes as if listening, or feeling for something.
Of course, she reminded herself. He could understand how something worked by laying his hands on it, absorbing the information by touch. That was what he was doing now.
Eventually he took his hands away. “Ahh, that is what you do,” he said, his voice loud enough for her to hear beyond the glass. “I guessed well.”
Brigit drew a deep breath and began calling up power from the depths of her. She waited to feel it rising up through her feet, heating her legs, filtering into her spine like magma rising through a volcanic chamber. But it didn’t.
Utana was done with the toilet now. He was picking up articles of clothing that had, apparently, been provided to him by the local Samaritan. He held up the trousers and looked at them doubtfully.
Turning, he yanked open the bathroom door and strode, naked, back into the room, apparently complaining about the pants.
Out of sight. Out of reach. She’d had the chance to save her people, and she had let it slip away. Again. What the hell was wrong with her?
Oh, but that smile … those eyes … told her more clearly than anything what was wrong with her.
She’d stopped seeing him as a killing machine. She’d seen him, just now, as a man. A man who could feel joy in the wonder of hot and cold running water, and electric lights. Like an innocent child, rather than a ruthless killer. A man whose death would mean his return to a state that was a lot like being buried alive.
Exactly like being buried alive.
No one deserved that, did they? Surely there had to be another way.
Slowly she withdrew from the window. She was going to have to follow them still farther, because she was certain now that this motel was not their final destination. If only she had her car.
“My king, you are about to experience something you’ve never even imagined.”
Utana was feeling much better since his bathing, though still hurting immensely from Brigit’s blast. He ignored the pain—something a warrior and king must become adept at doing. It was part, he thought, of being alive, being in a body again. And after being trapped without one for so long, he appreciated even the pain. He felt good, too, about his cleanly shaven face and the minty taste the “teeth-brushing” had left in his mouth, despite still being exhausted, in pain and uncomfortable in the modern clothing he’d reluctantly agreed to wear. The pants, in particular, felt confining and strange.
He looked across the car at his newfound vizier, doubt in his eyes. “You know not the wonder of my … imagines.”
“True enough.” Nashmun was driving, but he pointed up at the sky with one hand. “Have you ever imagined that?”
Scooting lower in the leather seat of the car, Utana tipped his head to stare skyward as the odd-looking bird passed overhead, and he nodded. “Yes, the large birds who soar, but whose wings do not move. I have seen and wondered on these.”
“They’re not birds, my friend. They are airplanes. Very much like the car in which you are riding now. They are machines, made by man, to take us from place to place. But instead of traveling on the ground, as we do in the car, the airplanes fly through the air.”
Utana shot him a look, then craned his neck to see the bird again. “It is not possible.”
“Of course it is. We’re going to ride in one very soon, to take us to your new home.”
“We are … to fly?”
“Yes. You’ll love it.”
Shaking his head as the airplane-bird moved out of sight, vanishing into the clouds, Utana said, “It is a strange world.”
“I’m sure it is. Your English is coming along beautifully, however.”
With a grunt and a nod at the device on the seat beside him, Utana nodded. “The voice that speaks into my ears is … help.”
“It’s an iPod. And the word you want is helpful.”
“Helpful. Yes.” He studied the man, his stomach fluttering with excitement over what was to come, and yet his mind was occupied with matters far more important. And one beautiful woman whose kiss still lingered on his lips. “Where do we fly?”
“There’s a house awaiting you—almost a palace, really. It’s where certain foreign royals stay when they visit my nation’s leader. And I’ve procured it for our use for … well, for as long as we’re likely to need it.”
A palace. It was certainly time, Utana thought. He had been treated with far less respect than his station demanded by the people of this land so far. And yet that, too, wasn’t his highest priority. “In … the direction of north?”
“South, actually.”
Utana shook his head firmly. “I must go north. My mission lies in the north.”
Nashmun sent him a steady look. His eyes appeared honest. “I want to help you in your mission, my king. But you need a home base. A place from which to plan and launch your attack. You need to heal from that wound you have,” he said, with a nod at Utana’s midsection. “And to regain your strength, and learn more about the way this world works and how to make your way in it.”
“They will escape me. I will know not how to find them again.”
“You can feel them. Sense them. Can’t you?” Nashmun shrugged, not awaiting a reply. “Besides, I doubt it will be necessary. They’ll be sending someone after you before long, if they haven’t already.”
Utana lifted his brows. “Someone?”
“An assassin. To kill you, Utana. They know you have no choice but to wipe them out. And they will try to murder you before you get the chance.” Nashmun tightened his grip on the wheel that let him steer the car. “That’s what kind of scum we’re dealing with here. They’re not human. They don’t have human emotions, or even common decency. They would do this, take the life of the man who created them—a man who should be as a god to them, a man they should fall on their knees and worship—they would take the life of their own king, their own father, in order to protect their own putrid existence.”
Utana lowered his head. Indeed, the man was correct. His people had already sent an “assassin” to try to kill him. A fiery, powerful, sexy assassin he would rather ravage than battle.
And yet, he couldn’t really blame the vahmpeers for doing so. He had, after all, destroyed a great many of their kind.
“It will be better to let them run awhile,” Nashmun was saying. “Let them find a haven they think is secure. They’ll start to think they’ve escaped you, start to relax their defenses a bit. Meanwhile, we will be gathering information. We’ll know everything about where they are and how many of them remain. When we move in, we’ll take them by surprise.”
“Not we, Nashmun. I. I will be the one to send them to their deaths.”
Nashmun shrugged. “As you wish, my king. But either way, it will be easy. Fast. One attack, and it will be done. And then you can live out your days in peace, knowing that when you die, the gods will allow you entry into the Land of the Dead, where you will find rest at long last.”
“I will not live long past my children,” he said. “I have no wish to do so.”
Utana lowered his head, his heart bleeding in his chest at the thought of finishing the task he had already begun. Oddly, his first attack on the vahmpeers had not hurt him the way only thinking of the next one did. It had not hurt him at all. His mind had not been fully restored then, he thought. He had lashed out like a long-caged and oft-tormented lion, whose door has been left open. It had felt like release.
Now it felt like a crime. Even though he knew it was the will of the gods, it felt wrong in his soul. And he wished with all he was that there was some other way. Even though he knew there was not.
“You’re injured and weak, my king. In only a few hours you will be home. I promise, you’ll be glad you let me help you.”
Utana nodded, then let his head rest against the back of the seat. He was injured. Brigit’s white-hot power had delivered a powerful blow. He’d used every bit of energy he could raise to keep her from killing him. And there was simply nothing left.
“That’s it, my king. You relax. Try to get some sleep. It’s all going to be better in no time. You’ll have food, servants, a physician to examine your wounds. You’ll be treated the way a man of your stature deserves. And you’ll be far more equal to your task when you recover and regain your strength. I promise.”
5
Brigit followed, still on foot. She was exhausted from her battle with Utana. Fighting the oldest immortal had drained her. Predictable, but she tended to see herself as ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Only in hindsight had it hit her between the eyes like a damned mallet that he most likely could have annihilated her if he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t. She had landed a blast. He was probably hurting like hell. Unless he healed rapidly like she and her brother did. Or during the day, the way vampires did. Or if he’d used the healing power he’d taken from her brother, James, to heal himself. If he even knew how.
She wondered about that. About the extent of his powers. About the whys and wherefores of how his brand of immortality worked. She wondered if even he knew the answers to those questions. He was the only one of his kind, after all. Who the hell was he going to ask?
She knew that feeling a little too well. Yet another thing they had in common, she and the big guy. The beam of light from the eyes—the power to ‘splode things, as she’d put it when she was a toddler, just figuring it out and getting yelled at for damn near every little explosion. The immortality, or at least, for her and J.W., apparent immortality. And the lack of anyone else in the world like them.
Of course, she had J.W. But he wasn’t really like her, either. His power was a good one. He was the healer. Hers was the opposite. She was a destroyer.
Like Utana.
He must have missed her on purpose. There was no question. His aim wasn’t that bad. He certainly hadn’t missed any members of that S.W.A.T. team that had surrounded him in downtown Bangor.
She reminded herself sternly that he hadn’t missed many of the vampires he’d attacked, either. Her friends. Her family. Tortured to the point of insanity by five thousand years of living death or not, that was unforgivable. Good to keep that in mind.
At any rate, she’d had a few hours sleep—yeah, in his arms, on the forest floor, like a pair of star-crossed lovers or some shit, but even so, she’d recovered some of her energy, even though she’d been expending it rapidly by following the big guy and his mysterious rescuer on foot ever since, all the while cloaking her presence. The food had helped, and the route the stranger was taking with his oversize green SUV helped even more. It took them right back through Bangor.
Sighing in abject relief, Brigit veered off from her pursuit. She jogged left, as they headed straight through the city, then right, into the drugstore parking lot where she’d left her baby-blue 20th anniversary edition Ford Thunderbird.
God, she loved her car. She had the key ring in her hand before she reached it, hit the remote starter button and unlocked the doors. By the time she slid behind the wheel, her baby was purring and ready. Relief washed over her like a warm bath. Another thing she was missing. For just a moment she leaned back against the headrest, closed her eyes and breathed.
Yes, she had inherited superhuman strength from the vampiric side of her ancestry. She could run very fast, and very far. But it wasn’t as easy for her as it was for her Undead relatives. She had to breathe, her heart had to pump, it wasn’t the same at all. It took a lot out of her.
But her pursuit was not yet ended. And her respite had to be brief.
Without wasting any more time, she got back on their trail, pulling out of the lot, then zooming along the side street parallel to Main, until she reached the edge of town and headed toward the highway. She could still see the tail end of the green SUV up ahead. Pressing down on the gas, Brigit thrilled to the roar of the engine and the feeling of power beneath her. She didn’t even have to max out her horsepower, though, before she caught up enough to be sure she wouldn’t lose them
She eased off the accelerator, keeping a safe distance and hoping Utana wouldn’t notice her so near. If she let her focus waver, even a little, he might sense her. She certainly felt him. He was a keen, sizzling awareness that seemed to come to life in every cell of her body. Every nerve ending seemed acutely attuned to his energy. His life force. His … aura. The closer she got to him, the more her skin tingled and prickled and felt. Every part of her was uncomfortably aware. Like when her teeth became sensitive to heat and cold. That kind of overpowering feeling, of being too sensitive, too aware. Too … vulnerable. Yes, vulnerable. Damn, she didn’t like that at all.
The SUV was turning off. Okay, okay, she needed to stop getting so distracted. She frowned as she approached the exit, noting the signs for Eastern Main Airport. She assumed they meant “airport” in the loosest sense of the word, because they were, at this point, in the middle of nowhere, and because this was not a place she’d ever heard of. It clearly wasn’t a commercial airport.
Good God, they were going to fly? The Good Samaritan was going to get a surprise when he tried to put a five-thousand-year-old Sumerian on an airplane. Utana wasn’t all that stable on the ground, for God’s sake. He was probably going to freak.
Beyond all that, Brigit wondered again who the hell the guy in the SUV was. Her suspicion that he was more than just a helpful stranger grew bigger. Because why would a helpful stranger feed Utana, clothe him, bathe him, shave him and then drive him to an airport?
Something was going on. She should have sensed it from the start. But she’d been so busy trying to sort through all the wishy-washy emotional bullshit, not to mention the fire and brimstone sexual bullshit, in her mind that she’d missed it.
Brigit followed them, staying as far behind as she could, over a circuitous and unpaved road. They bypassed several hangars, heading instead up a side route marked plainly as private. Though she imagined this entire place was privately owned.
No one stopped her as she tagged along, keeping their dust cloud in sight. Not yet, at least.
Far ahead of her, the dirt gave way to a winding strip of pavement. The SUV came to a stop at a manned security booth. After what she assumed was a brief exchange, the zebra-striped bar blocking the way rose up to allow the SUV entry. Not much farther beyond, Brigit saw a small black jet sitting on the tarmac. She could tell from the wavering vapors it emitted that its powerful engines were running.
A private jet?
Well, that clinched it. This Good Samaritan dude was definitely not the kindhearted local yokel she’d taken him for, despite what his jeans and flannel shirt and forest-green SUV might suggest.
Were probably intended to suggest.
The two men got out. Utana was moving under his own steam, and she hated the feeling of relief that came with the sight of him. She was supposed to kill him, not wound him and then worry about whether he was feeling it.
His stance wasn’t as erect or powerful as was his norm. He was still hurting. As she watched him from a distance, she felt his pain and wondered again why the hell he didn’t use her brother’s stolen power to heal himself.
Seeing the man that way detracted from her view of him as an all-powerful, timeless, ageless, almost Satanic being. She was seeing him as a man, a wounded man, out of his time and confused. Then again, she’d been seeing him that way ever since he’d kissed her. Ever since she’d seen his childlike delight at running water and electric lights.
The two men stood for a moment, and she tried to see the look on Utana’s face as he studied the jet. God, it must be amazing to him. Beyond imagining. And yet his face and reactions were hidden from her view.
And then she was distracted. The man at the tiny booth was exiting it, looking her way, raising a walkie-talkie from his belt.
Damn.
She executed a quick U-turn and headed back to the parking lot. No garage. This airport was too small for that. She left her precious car in the lot, locking it up tight, and then jogged toward that winding strip of pavement again. As soon as she thought she was out of sight of any prying eyes she poured on the speed … and yet she was too late.
The small jet was already in motion, speeding down the runway like a black vampire bat, about to take flight.
Blow it up!
She swallowed hard, watching the plane as it roared down the runway, picking up speed. Lifting her hand, fingers to thumb, she focused her eyes on the jet.
Do it! It’s what you came here to do. Hell, it’s what you were born to do! Her inner voice commanded. Kill him. Kill them both.
She called up the power, and her hand trembled with her torn emotions. Dammit, what was she going to do? There could be innocent people on that jet. The pilot, any other passengers she may not have seen. Hell, she didn’t even know if the Good Samaritan was deserving of being blown to bits.
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Maggie Shayne
The First Imortal Walks gain Utanapishtim has paid dearly for creating the vampire race – imprisoned in a living death for centuries, driven to near madness.With a single whitehot glance, he immolates his descendants…and the vampire Armageddon begins. Beautiful and deadly Brigit Poe, not wholly vampire but loyal to the bloodline, is called into action. Her destiny: to vanquish the oncegreat king of the immortals and save the vampire race.Soon locked in an unwinnable battle, the two warriors discover a passion so shocking it threatens every truth they’ve ever known – and seems fated to end in death and heartbreak.
Praise for the novels of
MAGGIE SHAYNE
“Shayne crafts a convincing world, tweaking vampire
legends just enough to draw fresh blood.”
—Publishers Weekly on Demon’s Kiss
“Maggie Shayne demonstrates an absolutely superb
touch, blending fantasy and romance into an
outstanding reading experience.”
—RT Book Reviews on Embrace the Twilight
“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate.
She satisfies every wicked craving.”
—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster
“Maggie Shayne delivers sheer delight, and fans new
and old of her vampire series can rejoice.”
—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Hunger
“Maggie Shayne delivers romance with sweeping
intensity and bewitching passion.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
Also by Maggie Shayne
Children of Twilight
TWILIGHT PROPHECY
Wings in the Night
VACATION WITH A VAMPIRE…AND OTHER
IMMORTALS:
‘Vampires in Paradise’
PRINCE OF TWILIGHT
BLUE TWILIGHT
‘Before Blue Twilight’
EDGE OF TWILIGHT
‘Run From Twilight’
EMBRACE THE TWILIGHT
TWILIGHT HUNGER
‘Twilight Vows’
BORN IN TWILIGHT
BEYOND TWILIGHT
TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS
TWILIGHT MEMORIES
TWILIGHT PHANTASIES
BLOODLINE
ANGEL’S PAIN
LOVER’S BITE
DEMON’S KISS
DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT
COLDER THAN ICE
THICKER THAN WATER
Secrets of Shadow Falls
KISS ME, KILL ME
KILL ME AGAIN
KILLING ME SOFTLY
Twilight
Fulfilled
Maggie
Shayne
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my editor, Leslie Wainger,
who has been with this series from its birth. With this
book, WINGS IN THE NIGHT is eighteen years old,
and twenty novels, novellas and an online read long, but
it never would have survived toddlerhood, nor grown into
the body of work that it has become, without the steadfast
support, wise guidance, and true love of its co-mommy.
Thank you will never suffice, but I’ll say it anyway.
Thank you, Leslie, with all my heart.
—Maggie
Well, I suppose I am forced to admit, the above
gooeyness goes for me, too, though my version will be
far more dignified and less … drippy. Still, it is undeniably
true that Leslie Wainger’s guidance had been invaluable.
Except, of course, for those rare occasions when she cut
or shortened my scenes. Still, no one is perfect. And she
really is a wise and wonderful woman. For a mortal. So,
thank you from me, as well, dear Leslie. You are one of
those rare humans that I can honestly call “friend.”
—Rhiannon
1
Coastal Maine
It was the blackest, rainiest night the forgotten and overgrown cemetery had seen in centuries. Ancient tombstones leaned drunkenly beneath the bones of dead-looking trees, while gnarled limbs shivered in the cold. Arthritic twig-fingers scratched the tallest of the old stone monuments like old, yellow fingernails on slate. And the surviving vampires huddled together around an open, muddy grave.
Brigit Poe, part vampire, part human, and one of the only two of her kind, was dressed for battle, not for a funeral. It was only coincidence that she wore entirely black. That breathable second-skin fabric favored by runners covered her body from ankles to waist like a surgical glove. Over the leggings, she wore tall black boots, with buckles all the way up to her knees. The chunky four-inch heels provided extra height, an advantage in battle. And the weight of them would add more potency to a kick. Her black slicker looked as if she’d lifted it straight from the back of a cowboy actor in an old spaghetti western. It was long and heavy, with a caped back, but it did more than keep the rain away. Its dense fabric would help deflect a blade.
She could have wished for a hood. She could have wished for a lot of things, topmost among them: for the task she faced to fall to anyone other than her. But that wasn’t going to happen.
As she stood there, watching each vampire move forward to pour ashes into the muddy hole, her twin brother walked up to her and plunked a black cowboy hat onto her dripping-wet blond curls. She had, she’d been told, hair like Goldilocks, the face of an angel, the heart of a demon—and the power of Satan himself.
Black hat, she thought. It figured. In that spaghetti Western she’d been envisioning, she definitely would have worn a black hat. Her brother would have worn a white one. He was the good guy. The hero.
Not her.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he told her. “Hunting him down. Killing him.”
“No shit. He’s five thousand years old and more powerful than any of us.”
“Not exactly what I meant, sis.” James—known to her as J.W. despite his constant protests—looked her dead in the eyes. She pretended not to know what he was looking for, even though she did. Decency. Morality. Some sign that she was struggling with the ethics of the decision that had been made—that she must find and execute the ancient one who had started the vampire race.
Only days earlier, her brother had located and resurrected the first immortal, the ancient Sumerian king known as “the Flood Survivor.” He was the original Noah, from a tale far older than the Biblical version. His name was Ziasudra in Sumerian, Utanapishtim in Babylonian.
A prophecy, the same prophecy that had foretold the war now raging between vampires and the humans who had finally learned of their existence, had also said that the Ancient One, the first immortal, the man from whom the entire vampire race had descended, was their only hope of survival.
Or at least, that was what they had thought it said. Turned out, their ancestor was actually the means of their destruction. Still believing the Ancient One was their salvation, J.W. had used his healing power to raise Utana from the ashes. And the man had returned to life with his mind corrupted by thousands of years spent trapped, conscious, his soul bound to his ashes.
Believing he’d been cursed by the gods for sharing his gift of immortality and inadvertently creating the vampire race, he’d set out to destroy them all. One look beaming from his eyes, and they were annihilated. He’d killed many vampires already.
Human vigilantes had killed even more.
The end of their kind, it seemed, was at hand.
Unless she could stop Utana from his self-appointed mission.
“What I meant,” her brother went on, “was that killing someone who can’t truly die, knowing that all you’re really doing is sentencing him to spend eternity, virtually buried alive—”
“Are you trying to tweak my conscience, J.W.?” she asked, irritated. “It won’t work. I don’t have one. Never have. That bastard’s killed hundreds of my kind. Our kind. I’ve got no problem taking him out before he can eliminate the rest of us. No problem whatsoever.”
Someone cleared his throat, and she looked toward the open grave again. Thirteen survivors of the recent annihilation had scooped up the dust of their beloved dead and brought the remains here, to this abandoned and long-forgotten cemetery in the wilds of Maine.
Those gathered included ten vampires: Eric and Tamara, Rhiannon and Roland, Jameson and Angelica, Edge and Amber Lily, Sarafina and the newly turned Lucy. In addition, there was Sarafina’s mortal mate, Willem Stone, and the mongrel twins, Brigit herself and her brother, J.W. The supposed only hope for the dark half of their family.
Rhiannon, their unofficial aunt, her long, slit-to-the-thigh gown dragging in the mud at her uncharacteristically bare feet, poured the final jar of ashes into the hole, threw the jar in after them, then tipped her head back and opened her arms to the skies. The rain poured down on the pale skin of her breasts, almost completely exposed by the plunging neckline of her bloodred gown. Her long black hair hung in wet straggles, and her eyeliner was running down her cheeks, mixed with rainwater and tears. She was not herself.
“I know you can hear me, my friends. My family.” Her voice broke, but Roland moved up behind her and placed his strong hands on her bare shoulders. Then slowly, he slid them outward, following the length of her arms upward, his black cloak opening with the motion, sheltering her from the rain. He clasped her hands in his, his arms open to the skies just as hers were.
It was a beautiful image. And heartbreaking at the same time.
“I know you can hear me,” Rhiannon said again. “And I trust you’ve found that we, too, enter paradise when we leave this life. We, too, are worthy of heaven. We have souls—souls that feel, that love, that live, a thousand times more powerfully than those of the mortals who call us soulless monsters.” She closed her eyes, drew a breath. “Be well, there in the light, my beloved ones. Be well, and fear not. For those you’ve left behind will survive.” She opened her eyes, and they were cold and dark, more frightening than ever, ringed as they were in black. “And I swear by Isis Herself, you will be avenged.”
She lowered her arms slowly, but Roland still held them, and he wrapped them around her waist, enfolding her in his cloak and in his arms as if they were one.
“It is done, my love. Come, we need to brief our little warrior before we send her off into battle.”
Rhiannon turned, meeting Brigit’s eyes, holding them. There was so much there, Brigit thought, staring at her mentor, the woman she most admired, most wanted to be like and whose approval she most craved. And truly, had never been without. There was love in those dark-ringed eyes. Love and grief and fear. A lot of fear.
Fear in Rhiannon’s eyes was something so unusual that it shook Brigit right to the core.
J.W. tightened his hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, little sister.”
“Easy for you to say. Your job was to raise our living dead forebear. I’m the one who has to deal with him now that he’s up and rampaging.”
“Come,” Eric said. “Let’s return to the mansion. It’s unsafe to be out in the open for long, even here.”
One by one, and two by two, they filed out of the cemetery together, taking a soggy path that wound from the old graveyard along a narrow and twisting course to the towering structure that sat alone on the rocky, seaside cliff. The ocean was as restless tonight as the skies, as the vampires and their kin made their way higher. Winds buffeted them, howling and crying as if they, too, mourned the loss of so many.
Brigit walked alone. Normally she and J.W. would have been a pair, side by side, the only two of their kind and yet opposites in every way. But now he had his mate, the beautiful, brilliant Lucy, a vampire now. And Brigit was … she was alone, and facing the biggest challenge of her entire existence. A challenge she didn’t want and wasn’t sure she could handle.
And yet, she was all but on her way. Her bag was packed and waiting at the mansion. She’d been waiting only for the funeral rites to conclude.
Up ahead, Rhiannon, in the lead—where else?—reached the mansion’s door and stood, holding it open while the others entered the crumbling ruin.
Brigit was last in line, and as she passed, Rhiannon put a hand on her forearm. “We’ll have a talk before you leave,” she said softly. “Wait in the library.”
Great, Brigit thought. One more delay, and it was as inevitable as it would be unpleasant. The elders must want to brief her before she left on what was undoubtedly a suicide mission. Just what she needed. A lecture before dying.
Downtown Bangor, Maine
The oldest being on the planet, the first immortal, the original Noah, stood trembling on a village sidewalk in the pouring rain. He wore a dripping wet bed sheet, wrapped in the old style around his body, covering one shoulder. He’d arrogantly refused to don the clothing that had been offered him when he’d first been resurrected. The type of clothing that he now realized was necessary if he hoped to become invisible among mankind in this strange new age. People looked askance at him, ordinary humans, mortals, dashing past him from their speeding mechanical conveyances to the small and poorly designed buildings that lined the streets. In and out they ran, as if the rain would melt them. Up and down the streets they rolled in those machines. Automobiles. Cars, he’d heard them called.
He wanted to know how they worked. But later. First he wanted to become invisible. He would prefer dead, but death wasn’t an option for him right now.
Right now he had very few options, in fact. But he did have needs, and the immediate ones were urgent enough to distract him from the problem of attracting too much attention. That would come after his initial needs were met. He needed warmth, shelter from the ice-cold, unforgiving rain. So much rain.
It would have been a blessing in his time—unless it went on too long. He wondered briefly whether this rain was normal in today’s civilization, or whether the gods, the Anunaki, had yet again decreed that mankind must be brought to its knees.
Utana shook off the shiver of apprehension that thought induced and tried once again to keep his focus on his immediate requirements. He needed food, lots of it. His belly was rumbling, twisting and gnawing at him, demanding sustenance. And water—he needed sweet water to drink. Those things were first. The rest could wait. The garments to help him blend in with the mundane commoners as thick on this land as fleas upon a desert dog, the knowledge he so craved and must acquire in order to make his way in this world, the mission he must accomplish in order to extract forgiveness from the gods—all of those things could come later.
Food. Water. Shelter.
Those first.
And so he looked at the buildings he passed—red brick or wood, no beauty nor art to them, with wide openings in the walls that appeared to be empty but, he had learned, were not. In the rain it was easier to see the droplets on the hard, transparent walls. When dry, the things—windows, they called them, made of a substance known as glass—were nearly invisible.
And yet, not quite.
He moved closer to one of the windows, drawn by the smell of food, only to pause as he stared at the image he saw there. The image of a man, wearing exactly what he wore and moving exactly as he moved. Clearly a reflection, he thought, lifting his hand, watching as the image did the same. Much like what one would see when looking into still water.
He tipped his head slightly and studied his image in the glass. It was no wonder, he thought, that the mortals were disturbed by him. He looked menacing. Wild. Standing in the rain, letting it pour down upon him, while they all raced for cover. He allowed it to soak his hair, his garment, his skin. And he was bigger than most of them, too. Taller, broader. He sported several days’ growth of beard upon his face. Dark it was, and dense, and he noticed that most of the people he encountered kept their faces shaved to the skin. A few had allowed their beards to grow, but they were trimmed carefully, tame and neat.
He pushed a hand through his long, onyx-black hair, shoving the dripping locks backward. And then he returned his attention to the window, and to the people he could see beyond it. They sat at tables, enjoying bountiful food that was brought to them by smiling servants who seemed content with their lot.
Finally something that made sense to him.
He watched for a while before going to the door through which others came and went. As he started to push the door open, a man appeared and stood blocking it. Skinny, but tall enough, and smiling even though his eyes showed fear.
“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re full tonight. Do you have a reservation?”
Utana looked from the man’s head to his shoes, and up again. “I know not … reservation,” he said. “I wish food.”
“Well, um, right. But as I said, we’re full tonight.” He lifted a hand, a helpless gesture. “No room.”
“Bring food here, then. I wait.” Utana crossed his arms over his chest.
“Um, right. From out of town, are you?”
Utana only grunted at the man, no longer interested in conversing with him. Silence would best convey that the discussion was over.
“Yes, I see. Well, the thing is, it doesn’t quite work that way here. I do have a suggestion for you, however.”
“I know not suggestion. Bring food. I wait.”
“Why don’t you try the soup kitchen? Methodist church at the end of the road. See? You can see the steeple from here.”
He was pointing while he babbled, and Utana only managed to understand a word here and there. He was learning the language rapidly, but interpreting the words spoken in the rapid-fire way of the people here was still difficult. He followed the man’s pointed finger and saw the spire stabbing upward into the sky. “Ah, yes, church. I know church. House of your lonely god.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s it. Go to the church. They’ll have food for you there, and a place to sleep, as well, if you need one.”
Utana nodded, but he was more enticed by the smells coming from within, and impatient with the man, who was clearly trying to send him away without a meal. It was all very good to know there would be a bed for him at the house of the mortal’s singular god. But there was food here now, and he wasn’t leaving without partaking of some of it.
So he simply pushed the skinny man aside and continued opening the door. As he was about to enter, another man ran up and pushed against the door from within. But Utana pushed harder and shoved the man back hard, sending him flying into the wall, where he caught himself with one hand, rubbing the back of his head with the other.
Utana walked into the food place.
There was noise at first, people talking, and the clinking, chinking sounds of their ridiculous eating utensils and dishes. But as their eyes fell upon him, the eating and conversation ceased, and dead silence ensued.
Utana eyed the tables, the food, the stares of the stunned diners, no doubt surprised by the appearance of a large, dripping wet man, dressed in what James of the Vahmpeers had told him was meant to be used as bedding, but he cared not. He was focused only on food, on sustenance. His nostrils flared as he caught the scent of beef, and his gaze shot to its source.
A man in an odd white hat came through a swinging door in the back of the room, bearing in his arms a tray laden with so much bounty he could barely carry it. Each dish was covered by a lid of shining silver, and yet the aromas escaped, and Utana’s stomach churned in its need.
He did not hesitate. He strode toward the small, food-bearing man, who froze at the sight of him. His frightened eyes darted left and right as he debated whether to stay where he was or to retreat. In three strides, Utana was there, taking the tray. Then he turned and walked back through the room. People rose from their tables, backing away from the path he cut. Two people stepped forward instead, and tried to block his way, but he moved them aside with a simple sweep of his powerful arm, sending them tumbling into a nearby table. The table broke, its contents toppling into the laps of the diners who sat there, even as they scrambled to escape. A woman screamed.
Utana moved past the ruckus to the door. Servants shouted after him, asking what he thought he was doing. But he ignored them all, carrying his bounty into the street and through the pouring rain, in search of a sheltered spot in which to eat.
In a moment he spotted one of the humans’ wheeled machines, a large one, with a back like a gigantic box and a pair of doors at the rear that stood wide open. Utana marched straight to it and easily stepped up into the box. He set his bounty on its floor and pulled the doors closed behind him. Making himself comfortable, or as comfortable as he could be while still wet and freezing cold, he lifted the shining lids one by one, bending closer to smell. He had no idea what most of the dishes contained, except for the one that hid the large joint of beef he’d been smelling. It was still warm, brown on the outside and oozing with juices. He picked it up and bit in, and the flavor exploded in his mouth. Tender and luscious, pink in the middle, the meat was the finest meal he’d had since reawakening to life. He leaned back against the metal wall of the box, chewed and swallowed, and sighed in relief.
One need, at least, had been met this day.
Washington, D.C.
“Congratulations, Senator MacBride,” the Senate Majority Leader said.
He’d just sailed into the room where she’d been waiting for over an hour, hand extended as he crossed toward her.
Rising, she accepted the handshake. He wore a huge smile—one of those toothy crocodile smiles she’d learned how to identify her first week in office. So she prepared herself for the storm of bullshit that was sure to follow.
“Thank you, Senator Polenski. And might I ask what is it I’m being congratulated for?”
The veteran senator just waved a hand in the air. “Your new appointment. But please, sit down. Relax. I’ll ring us up some refreshments and tell you all about it.” Walking to his desk, he reached for the phone. “What would you like? Coffee? Perhaps something a bit stronger, to celebrate?”
“I’d really prefer to know what I’m celebrating first, Senator.”
He set the phone back down and perched on the edge of his desk. She was still standing right between the two cushy chairs in front of the desk, on a carpet that was so deep, her sensible two-inch pumps nearly became flats.
He met her eyes. “You’ve been named head of the Committee on U.S.-Vampire Relations.”
She lowered her head, laughing softly. “Fine. Fine, I’ll have coffee. You can tell me all about it as we sip.”
He was stone silent until she had stopped laughing. She weighed the tension in the room and realized that he hadn’t been making a joke. Lifting her head slowly, she met his eyes, tiny blue marbles beneath a head of thick white hair that always looked windblown. “Come on, Senator Polenski, you can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious. Word is out that they exist, thanks to that idiot former CIA operative and his tell-all book. Most of them—and a good number of ordinary human beings, as well—have been wiped out by vigilante groups at this point, but our intelligence agencies believe there are a handful remaining. Surely you’ve been following all of this in the news.”
“I … I didn’t think it was … real.” She sank into one of the chairs, the wind knocked out of her. “I thought the official stance on the late Lester Folsom was that he was demented and suffering from delusions.”
“It was. Unfortunately, no one bought it. So now we need to own up. They exist. It’s real. John Q. Public is terrified, and scared citizens are dangerous citizens, MacBride. We need someone to get a handle on this. To calm the public. To see to it that these … creatures are contained, monitored and dealt with.”
She must have given away her gut-level reaction to his words, because he averted his eyes, and added, “As fairly and humanely as is practical, of course.”
“Of course,” she said.
He nodded. “You will act as the conduit between the CIA and the Senate. You’ll gather all the information available and ride herd on the man in charge of this mess, Nash Gravenham-Bail. Freaking mouthful. Rest assured, he isn’t going to accept your involvement easily. You’re going to have to ride him hard, do your own digging, know when he’s holding back and how much and push for more.”
“Get him to tell me everything. I understand.”
Rafe Polenski shook his head. “Gravenham-Bail will never tell you everything. But get as much as you can. Bring the rest of us up to speed, put together your committee members and with them, come up with a plan of action for us to consider.”
She blinked three times, shook her head and looked away.
“Well? What do you have to say?”
She drew a breath, opened her mouth, closed it again and drew another, searching her mind for words as her brain clogged itself up with questions. Clearly no one in their right mind would want to take this on. This was the modern-day equivalent, she thought, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and God knew that hadn’t gone too well. For the Indians, at least.
Vampires. Good God. Vampires.
They were pushing this assignment onto a junior senator from the Midwest. Someone they thought was too naive to know better. Someone easily manipulated, easily controlled. She was none of those things. But she hadn’t been in office long enough for them to realize it. She knew exactly what was happening here. This wasn’t going to succeed, and someone was going to have to take the fall when the shit hit the fan. She had just been appointed to be the one.
She knew all of that.
And she also knew that she couldn’t turn the post down. One did not turn down Senator Rafe Polenski. The man was a legend.
“Well?” he asked, waiting, already knowing her inevitable answer.
She met his calculating eyes, and knew she was well and truly trapped. But maybe knowing what was going on would give her an advantage. Maybe she could outwit the snowy fox himself and live to tell the tale. Maybe she was a little smarter than this old-school, old-boy network member knew.
“Your decision, Senator MacBride?” he asked pointedly.
“Scratch the coffee,” she said. “I’ll have vodka.”
Mount Bliss, Virginia
Jane Hubbard exited a taxi, and stood looking at the front of a massive and beautiful building. Winged angels made of stone flanked the tall, wrought-iron gate, which had opened to let the taxi enter. It had proceeded along a circular drive with a giant fountain in the center, where a statue of the beautiful St. Dymphna stood, holding a lighted oil lamp—with a real flame, no less—in one hand, like something straight out of Aladdin, and a sword in the other. The sword pointed downward, its tip piercing a writhing dragon at her feet, and water spurted upward from the slain serpent, arching gently back down again into the pool below.
The building had once been known as the St. Dymphna Asylum, as attested by those very words engraved into the white stonework above the entry doors, but was now known as the St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital. A more modern sign just beyond the gates said so.
But the place didn’t look modern. It looked a century old. Maybe two. And as comforting as the angels and the saint were, Jane felt a shiver of apprehension when she studied the chain-link fence that enclosed the manicured lawns.
Melinda, at her side, squeezed her hand. “It’ll be like a vacation, right, Mommy?”
“That’s right, honey. That’s right.”
Jane had no reason to mistrust her government. The official who had shown up at her door had been female and kind. She’d known about Melinda’s condition—the rare Belladonna Antigen in her blood. Jane had known, too. She’d known that the condition made her baby bleed like a hemophiliac. She’d known that it made donors extremely hard to find. And she’d known that it meant her daughter, now seven, probably wouldn’t live to see forty.
What she hadn’t known—had never even suspected—was that it made her a favorite target of creatures that were not supposed to exist. Vampires, the federal agent had told Jane, were real. All the hype in the news of late had been true. And while most of the monsters had been killed by the vigilante movement sweeping the nation, there were still some at large. Any human being who possessed the Belladonna Antigen was at very great risk of being victimized by them.
Especially now that humans and vampires were virtually at war.
And so the government had set up a haven for these rare humans, a place where they could go and be protected, cared for and absolutely safe, until this vampire problem was under control.
Jane would do anything to protect her little girl. It was the just the two of them. Had always been. Melinda was special. She was more special than even the government or her own doctors knew. Jane had always protected her.
And that was what she was doing now. Protecting Melinda.
Holding her little girl’s tiny hand, she stepped through the arching, churchlike, wooden double doors of St. Dymphna’s, and wished she could shake the feeling that she was making a terrible mistake.
2
Coastal Maine
Brigit sat in the library of the beautifully restored Maine mansion that had been the home of a pair of vampires who were now among the missing: Morgan and Dante. She thought, however, that the simple fact their home was still standing was a very good sign. If it hadn’t been burned, then their neighbors probably hadn’t yet branded them vampires and decided to murder them in their sleep. No roaming band of vigilantes had yet targeted them.
Morgan’s mortal sister, Max, and her husband, Lou, had lived there, as well. Having an identical twin who was mortal was probably an extremely good cover, Brigit thought. But they had headed for safer ground, not wanting to be accidentally executed, as a great many innocent mortals had been.
Their brethren must consider it collateral damage when they killed their own. If a body remained after the fire, then the victim must have been innocent. If no body was found, the victims had clearly been vampires and burned to ash. That thinking made as much sense as witch dunking. If you drowned, you were innocent. Oops.
The de Silva mansion was empty but intact. The power was still on. The house had heat and indoor plumbing, phone and internet. It was all good. Brigit wished she could stay.
But she had an assignment, and it wasn’t going to be a pleasant one.
As the elders filed in, all of them having changed into dry clothes, and pink with the flush of a recent meal, Brigit waited, wondering what they would have to say to her.
Rhiannon entered first, wearing one of her signature gowns, floor-length, thigh-high slit, plunging neckline. This one was teal-green, a color Brigit hadn’t seen on her before. It went well with her raven hair. She was far more than an elder vampiress. She was Rianikki, a priestess of Isis, daughter of a pharaoh. She knew about magic and could do things no other vampire could.
Behind her came her beloved Roland de Courtemanche in his old-school tux and black satin cloak. Probably unwise of him to keep wearing something that might as well have been a flashing Vampire Here sign, but that was his call. He’d been a medieval warrior knight, was wise beyond questioning and had a fierce side that he kept very well contained.
Eric Marquand, Roland’s best friend, came next. A nobleman, a physician and a scientist, Eric had nearly been beheaded during the French Revolution. Roland had visited him in his cell on the night before he was slated to meet the guillotine, saving his life and making him over.
Sarafina, the beautiful, fiery Gypsy, came last, skirts and scarves trailing, bangles and earrings jingling as she moved. She was the missing Dante’s aunt, but more like a sister to him. And worry marred her brow.
The four sat at a table, embodying more than four thousand years of living, of wisdom, of knowledge. And yet there were some troubling absences among the elders of their kind. Damien, the first vampire, once known as Gilgamesh. The Prince, who had become known as Dracula down through the ages. They’d struck out separately with their respective mates to try to locate survivors and bring them to safety. But it wasn’t safe out there. Not even for them.
Although these ancient mighty beings who surrounded her now had practically raised her, Brigit saw them through fresh eyes on this night. She felt awe at their presence, their power, and found herself bowing her head slightly before taking her own chair at the long table.
It was Rhiannon who began, with a story that Brigit already knew by heart.
“Utanapishtim, Ziasudra, onetime Priest King of the land of Sumer, was beloved of the gods, and so when they sent the great flood to wipe out mankind, he alone was spared. In return for his loyalty, the gods bestowed upon him the gift of immortality. There was only one caveat—he must never attempt to share the gift with any other human.”
Rhiannon fell silent, her gaze sliding, adoringly but solemnly, to Roland, who nodded once and picked up the tale. “The great king Gilgamesh—the man we know today as Damien—was in deep mourning for his best friend, Enkidu, who was more than a brother to him. Enkidu was like the king’s shadow self—like a twin who is opposite and yet the same,” he said, with a meaningful look straight into her eyes.
Brigit understood.
“King Gilgamesh blamed himself for Enkidu’s death. He wanted only to find a way to restore life to his friend. And so he wandered into the desert in search of the only immortal—the flood survivor. And he found him. The king commanded that Utana share the gift of immortality with him, so that he could share it, in turn, with Enkidu.”
Roland stopped there, turning to Sarafina, who took up the thread. “Utana could not refuse his king, and so he gave him the gift. But despite becoming immortal himself, King Gilgamesh could not recover his friend from the Abode of the Dead. And because Utana had disobeyed the gods, he was cursed. His eternal life was taken from him—but his immortality was not. And later, when he was murdered by an evil one, Utana died but did not die. We know now that his spirit remained, trapped with his ashes, lo these five thousand years.”
Eric took over from Sarafina at her gentle nod. “There came to light a prophecy, a stone tablet from Utana’s time, that told of the destruction of the vampire race and suggested that only by raising Utanapishtim from the dead could it be averted. This prophecy spoke of the twins who were neither vampire nor human but both combined, the two who are like no other and yet opposites, who would save our kind. But parts of the tablet were missing. Broken. Hidden away, so its true meaning was unclear.”
Eric then looked at Brigit, holding her eyes until she knew she was supposed to fill in the rest. She cleared her throat, nodding. “And so the good twin, the one who was born with the gift of healing, found Utana’s ashes and restored life to him. But Utana’s mind was warped from thousands of years of imprisonment, and he turned on his own people, decimating the vampire race he had never intended to create. And those who remain believe it is only the evil twin, who was born with the power of destruction, who can return him to the grave—his prison—and save what few remain of vampire-kind.”
Everyone in the room nodded.
Rhiannon spoke again. “Utana believes that he can only be free of his curse by undoing the wrong he committed so long ago. He thinks he has to wipe us out, so that when he dies again, he will move on to the afterlife, rather than returning to the horror of the living death where he spent more than five thousand years.”
“I know.”
“We know very little about his strengths, his powers,” Rhiannon said. “Except that he can blast a beam of light from his eyes that is much like the explosive beam you yourself can project.”
“And that he can take the powers from others,” Brigit added, with a look toward the closed door, beyond which her brother lingered, somewhere, with their parents, Edge and Amber Lily, and the others. “We know that, because he took J.W.’s healing gift away from him.”
Everyone nodded sadly.
“We don’t know how to kill him in a way that will free his spirit,” Roland said softly. “We only know that the first time he died, he was beheaded and his body cremated, at least according to the tablets. And while it grieves all of us to think we might be condemning him—our own forebear—to return to that nightmarish state, he has left us with no other choice.”
Brigit nodded. “I know.”
“We also know,” Eric said, “that he can sense us, feel us, just as we can detect the presence of one another, and of the Chosen. There’s a bond, a connection. We believe that he is using that bond to follow us, even now.”
Brigit frowned; this was the first she’d heard of that. “What makes you think so?”
Eric rose, crossing the room to take a remote control from a nearby shelf and aiming it toward an elaborately carved, antique-looking cherrywood armoire. The armoire’s doors swung open, revealing a large, state-of-the-art flat-screen TV. Eric thumbed another button to turn it on, and another to activate the DVR and choose a local news broadcast from a few hours earlier.
Captioned “Bangor, Maine,” with today’s date beside it, footage panning the interior of a demolished restaurant played out on the screen. Then the scene switched to show a S.W.A.T. team surrounding a delivery truck on a street that had been closed down, as a grim-voiced reporter explained, “An apparently mentally disturbed man trashed Succulence, a four-star restaurant in Bangor, this evening. The assailant took only food, but injured several people and caused enormous damage to the business. Police believe they now have this obviously dangerous man cornered in the back of a delivery truck a few blocks away from the restaurant. This is live coverage of the S.W.A.T. unit, as they slowly close in on the truck and—”
“No,” Brigit said, getting to her feet, talking to the TV as if it would help. “No, no, get them out of there!”
A hand fell on her shoulder, and Roland said, “This is a recording, child. It’s already happened.”
The cops took cover and took aim, as someone lifted a bullhorn to order the man to come out with his hands up.
Brigit watched as the truck doors opened and Utana appeared. She’d seen the man before, but never looking like he did then. His makeshift garment—a toga made from a bed sheet—was torn, wet and filthy, his long black hair hanging in dripping straggles, his face shadowed by a wild-looking beard, his eyes dangerous.
He looked like she imagined Moses had, after his encounter on Mount Sinai.
And then she could see nothing but the beam that emanated from his eyes just before the picture went to snow. The screen flicked back to the somber, too-tanned face of an anchor at the news desk. “Our camera crew survived, and though they got additional footage, we can’t show you more, out of respect for the families of the seventeen officers who were wiped out by whatever unknown weapon this madman was wielding. Frankly, it’s just too gruesome for television. The man is still at large, and the National Guard has been called in to help with the hunt.”
Brigit stared at the screen long after Eric had shut off the television.
“You have to stop him, Brigit.”
She nodded. “And what are all of you going to do? You can’t stay here. He’s too close. He won’t stop until he finds you.”
“We’re moving,” Roland said. “The plantation in Virginia is isolated enough in the Blue Ridge Mountains that it should be safe … at least for a little while. We don’t want to go too far until we’ve eliminated this threat and gathered as many of our own together as we can find. After that, we’ll likely be forced to leave the country for a location more remote and isolated than anything the U.S. has to offer in this day and age. We’re exploring several options now. But that’s not for you to worry about.”
“You have only one task to focus on,” Rhiannon said. “Find the first immortal. Find him … and kill him.”
Downtown Bangor, Maine
Utana had sensed the soldiers surrounding his temporary haven. All he had wanted was a meal, and a dry place in which to eat it. And he’d found both, though he had been surprised by the resistance of the food vendors when it came to sharing their bounty. Taking it by force had seemed ridiculous. Did they not realize he was a king? He had left the establishment in a mess, but it would be easily restored. He’d broken a table, perhaps some of the strange pottery food-vessels, as well. He’d had to use force on some of the humans. The mortals. That was what James of the Vahmpeers had called the ordinary ones. Mortals. Utana had intended them no harm, had used no more force than was necessary.
Well, perhaps a bit more than was necessary. He’d been agitated. And half-starved.
But then he’d found a shelter and filled his belly with the food, and he had never eaten its equal. Never. It was luscious, fit for the gods. He’d found a comfortable spot in the corner of the box that contained him, and he’d curled up, intent on napping, despite the fact that his clothes were still wet and he was shivering with cold.
And then, just as he’d been about to nod off into the world of dream journeys, he’d felt them all around him. He’d felt their fear of him, their hatred and their intentions. His punishment for taking a meal without compensation was to be death, it seemed. They carried weapons, he sensed it. And he knew by the vibrations in the very ether between them and himself that those weapons would be used on him without hesitation.
Yes. There was no question. He felt it. Violence. Barely contained, crouching like a tiger about to spring.
And so he had no choice. He wanted nothing from these humans. He meant them no harm whatsoever. It was his own race he must wipe from existence, not theirs. All he intended was to eat, to sleep and to be on his way. This devastation he was about to unleash was entirely their own doing.
Sighing in resolution, and with no small regret, he had opened the doors of his haven and meted out justice. He’d focused the beam from his eyes on the men who leveled their weapons at him. The light shot forth, a blue-white stream that widened, opening like the wings of a great, deadly bird, so that all of them were caught in it. The soldiers went still as the beam hit them. Their eyes widened as their bodies began to vibrate, frozen within the grasp of his power and unable to break free. And then, one by one, they exploded.
When it was over, an eerie calm fell over everything around him. The silent stillness of death. It was like no other emanation. When the souls fled the bodies of the living, especially in such massive numbers all at once, they left a vacuum behind. A space devoid of sense, of sound, almost of air.
Utana stepped down from the box-on-wheels, and he walked amid the remains. True carnage, this. Pieces of the humans littered the stone like ground, and hung from the motorized vehicles and the tall, light-emitting poles, and from the lines that seemed to be strung everywhere in this world. It was a terrible waste of life, and all for nothing.
As he looked at the death and mutilation around him, he thought of the healing power he had taken from James of the Vahmpeers. He had not yet attempted to use it, but he had no illusions that it would be effective on bits and pieces of men. He would first have to sort them, leaving none out, nor mixing any together. Such a task would be impossible, and would take days—weeks, perhaps—even to attempt. No, it was of no use. Were they not meant to die this day, they would not have placed themselves in his path. The higher being knew far more than did the earthly one. Their fate had been sealed; there was no undoing it.
He picked his way among the limbs and gore, amid the tiny fires dancing from their motor-driven conveyances, and the smoke spiraling all around him. He saw more humans, watching from a safe distance, and he felt only fear and terror coming from them—no attack. Pausing, Utana bent low to scoop up a dead man’s weapon. And as he held it, he closed his eyes briefly and absorbed its vibration through his palms. It took only seconds for him to understand how the weapon worked, how to use it, what it did. And so he gathered up a few more before moving on.
More soldiers would come after him. No army would let so many deaths go unavenged. He had not wanted war with the humans, but it seemed inevitable now.
His bare feet were cold as they slapped down on the wet stonelike substance with which modern man had apparently paved the world. The rain was lighter now. He would find clothing and shelter, a base of operations from which to work. The vahmpeers had moved to somewhere not far from this place. But they would know of his nearness now. Word of his deeds this night would surely spread. And then they would flee. If he hoped to catch up to them, to wipe them from existence, he had to find them before they did.
Washington, D.C.
“You can go in now, Senator,” the curly haired receptionist said.
Marlene MacBride rose from the vinyl chair she’d been warming for the past twenty minutes, smoothed her pencil-slim skirt over her thighs and strode to the door. She was staring at the plaque that adorned it. Special Agent Nash Gravenham-Bail. As she lifted a hand to tap before entering, the door swung open, and she glimpsed a broad torso and a large file box coming toward her.
The box bumped her chest before she had a chance to move out of the way. She automatically gripped it, and the man behind it spoke.
“Senator MacBride. Sorry about the wait, but I think you’ll find everything you need in here. Enough to get you started, at least.”
Marlene lifted her stunned eyes from the box to the face of the man shoving it at her. It was the scar that caught her attention, as she would guess it did most people’s upon meeting this man for the first time. It was a thin pink line, raised a bit, that began at the outside corner of his left eye and angled across his cheek to the center of his chin.
“Line of duty,” he said. “Besides, it’s intimidating. That’s a bonus in my line of work.”
She shifted her focus from his scar to his eyes. Wet cement, they were. “Mr. Gravenham-Bail?”
“It’s a mouthful, I know,” he said. “I still cuss my parents out on a daily basis for the hyphenated name thing. I mean, really, just pick one already. Make a decision.”
She nodded.
“Easier if you just call me Nash.”
“Mmm.” He still hadn’t let her into his office. She was standing in the doorway, holding a box that was getting heavier by the minute, and getting absolutely nowhere with him. “Look, Nash, I was expecting a meeting with you. So you could brief me on all this.”
“Oh, really? I thought you’d want documents. Files.”
“Well, those, too, but—”
“Look if you want a meeting, we’ll set one up. Week after next?”
“I’m afraid that—”
“Barbara,” he called, and started moving forward. Marlene had to either back up or let him walk right into her. He backed her into the reception area, pulling his office door closed behind him. “Barbara, schedule me a sit-down with the senator, here, for the next free afternoon I have. A full hour. And, uh, get someone to help her down with this file box, will you?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Nice meeting you, Senator MacBride. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
He extended a hand to shake, looked sheepishly at the box that was occupying both of hers, then turned and was back in his office, door closed, before she could say boo. Hell, this wasn’t going well at all.
Nash closed his office door, counted to sixty and picked up the phone. “Babs, she gone yet?”
“The elevator doors just closed on her, sir.”
“Great. Get me a flight to Maine. Bangor, or as close to there as possible.”
“Right away, sir.”
Nash needed to get his hands on this resurrected monster, get him under control. He would not rest until every last vampire was obliterated. If even one remained, they would make others. Like damn lice. They were parasites. You had to pick ’em clean to end the infestation. And you had better get their eggs, too, unless you wanted to start the process all over again. In this case, that meant the so-called Chosen. Humans with the rare antigen in their blood that made them susceptible to the disease the Undead had dubbed the Dark Gift. It wasn’t a gift. It was a freaking mutation. The only humans who could become vampires were the carriers of the Belladonna Antigen, so they would have to be eliminated, too. As soon as they’d served their purpose.
The Dymphna Project would take care of that. And by the time pesky Senator MacBride waded through the paperwork mountain he’d handed her, it would all be over.
But in order for his plan to work, he needed to find this Utanapishtim, this madman from another age, another world. He had to win the man’s trust, so he could wield him like the weapon Nash intended him to be.
And then, when the war was over and humans were victorious, he would destroy the so-called immortal last of all, and end the age of the vampires for all time.
He was going to save mankind from the scourge of the Undead. And no junior senator from Nebraska was going to get into his way. No matter how good she looked in a skirt.
St. Dymphna Psychiatric Hospital Mount Bliss, Virginia
Roxanne was the nurse on check-in duty on the day the odd little girl and her mother arrived at St. Dymphna.
And as it turned out, that was a damned good thing. Then again, she’d never believed in coincidence.
Roxy had been a friend to the vampires all her life. And her life was a long one. Longer than most of the folks who carried the Belladonna Antigen in their blood. They were known as the Chosen, and word was, they didn’t live to see forty.
She’d seen a hell of a lot more than forty, but she wouldn’t admit how much more. Not under torture. Besides, age was just a number.
Roxy had no desire to become a vampire. But she damn well wasn’t going to stand by and watch them get wiped out of existence, either. Her vamp friends had been good to her. Saved her wrinkle-free hide more than once.
So when she got notification from Uncle Sam that she was to report to some out-of-commission loony bin with all the other Chosen, to be protected from vampire attack, she knew it was time to take action.
Vampires didn’t prey on the Chosen. They were like spooky-ass guardian angels to them. Couldn’t help themselves. One of her kind got into trouble, one of their kind showed up to bail them out. Usually did a little oogly-boogly mind shit on the way out, just to erase the memory and keep their cover intact.
Vamps weren’t the only ones who could play oogly-boogly mind games.
Roxy had made herself disappear. As far as the government knew, she was on the run, avoiding compliance with their summons, while in truth she was right under their noses, with a false ID and a freshly minted nursing license, working as an R.N. at St. Dymphna’s. Forged paperwork, a little witchcraft—yeah, she was a card-carrying spell-caster—and bam, she was hired.
And she was damned glad to be in the place, too, that day when she greeted the newest guests, Jane and Melinda Hubbard, at the front door.
The mom and daughter looked like two photos of the same person taken twenty years apart. And they looked scared, too.
“Hey, now. There’s no call to look like that,” Roxy said. “Know why?”
Melinda stared at her, huge blue eyes seeing right through her, she thought. “Why?” the little girl asked.
Hell, the kid’s gaze was so intense it sent a little shiver up Roxy’s spine. But she shook it off and smiled. “Because I’m here. And I’m going to give you my personal promise that nothing bad will happen to you while you’re here. You’re gonna be my special friends. And no one messes with Roxy’s friends. Okay?”
Jane smiled a little, hugging her daughter closer.
“She’s like me, Mommy,” Melinda said softly.
Roxy felt her smile die as Jane shot her a look. Quickly Roxy glanced around to make sure no one else had heard, and then she knelt down to put herself at eye level with the little girl. “I am like you,” she whispered. “But that has to be our little secret, okay? No one else can know.”
“Why?”
Roxy swallowed hard. She had not intended to tell these people—nor any of the other captives—who or what she was. It was too dangerous. Now she had a seven-year-old apparent psychic to contend with.
Roxy bent closer. “I might get into trouble if you tell. Okay, honey? You know how to keep a secret, don’t you?”
“Uh-huh.” Melinda eyed Roxy up and down. “Okay,” she said. “I won’t tell.” Then looking up at her mother, she said, “She’s good.”
Roxy’s brows went up. There was definitely more to this little girl than the antigen they shared. Speaking at a more normal volume, she said, “I’m gonna find you guys the nicest room in this place. Come on with me now. We’re all up on the fourth floor.”
As they headed for the elevators, Jane leaned in close. “What’s going on around here, Roxy?”
Roxy glanced up and to the right, where the wall met the ceiling, meaning in her eyes. And she knew when Jane followed her gaze and spotted the camera mounted there. “Eyes and ears, hon,” she whispered, a big, fake smile on her face. “Everywhere.”
Jane nodded and lowered her head, face averted from the camera. “I’m just trying to find out if it’s safe here for my daughter.”
“Should have done that before you brought her here,” Roxy said.
“Then we’re leaving.” Jane started to turn away toward the big entry door.
Roxy clasped her arm, and squeezed hard enough to get her attention and stop her in her tracks. “They won’t let you leave. You didn’t notice the armed guards walking the perimeter? The electric fence around this entire place? You’re here now. And you’ll have to stay here.”
“But—”
“No buts. No choice.” The elevator doors slid open as Roxy released the woman’s arm but continued to hold her eyes. Her false smile had vanished, and she realized it and pasted it back on again. “I’ll do everything I can to protect you both. And when the time is right, I’ll get you out of here.”
“That’s why you’re keeping your … condition … secret?”
Roxy nodded as she hustled them into the elevator. “You want the zoo cages left unlocked, best have a monkey posing as a zookeeper, don’t you think? Now come on. You blow my cover, we’re all done for. And for heaven’s sake, smile. You’ve gotta look like you’re glad to be here. All right?”
“All right.”
They stepped inside, all three of them, and the elevator doors slid closed. As they rode upward, Roxy added, in a very soft whisper, “Don’t let them know she’s different. That would be … bad.”
The mother shifted her blue eyes to the little girl, who stood between the two adults, her knapsack on her back, a teddy bear peeking from the top. Tears shimmered in Jane’s eyes, but she blinked them away and tightened her grip on her daughter’s tiny hand.
3
Bangor, Maine
Brigit smelled death in the air. Death, grief, violence. And something more. She was standing above a demolished street in downtown Bangor, Maine. There was a taste to the night, a scent and a feeling. It smelled this way after lightning struck. After an electrical transformer had blown up, or after a breaker box had short-circuited.
And after she had used her power to blow something to bits.
She would have known what had happened here simply by that smell, even if she hadn’t seen the news reports with her own eyes.
The streets were blocked off. Cops wearing black armbands in honor of their dead stood sentry at every possible access point. But they hadn’t covered the rooftops. Local law enforcement agencies had a lot to learn about the Undead—and their mongrel kin.
Brigit stood on the roof of a hardware store, looking down at the mayhem. Burned-out vehicles, scattered debris. There were still body parts here and there, missed by the EMTs and the crews from the coroner’s office, no matter how thorough they thought they had been. She could smell them. Charred meat had a distinctive aroma, and charred human meat had one all its own. It wasn’t pleasant.
Her nose wrinkled, and she averted her face, closing her eyes against the onslaught of remembered images. But she couldn’t stop the nightmarish scene from playing out in her mind just as it had so recently played out for real on the streets below her. She was too close, her mind too open. She saw the entire encounter play out in her mind’s eye. Utana big and so powerful, but more utterly alone than any man had ever been, cold, wet and shivering in the delivery truck, devouring the stolen food with relish. She felt his awareness of being surrounded, his confusion as to why the humans would want to harm him when his goal was the same as theirs. To exterminate the vampires.
She felt his anger, and she felt, too, his reluctance to do what he had to do—followed slowly by his bitter acceptance of it. He believed the humans had left him no other choice. He believed it completely.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, willing the images away, but they played out all the same. The beam blasting forth from Utana’s eyes. The men—innocent men—being blown literally to pieces. And despite the horror of it, Brigit found herself compelled to examine the images more closely. How had he widened out the beam that way? She couldn’t do that. She had to blow up one thing at a time. How had he managed to broaden its scope to include a wide range of targets all at once? She’d never been able to achieve such a thing.
Hell, if he was more powerful than she was …
No, she wouldn’t think that way. He might be stronger, but she was smarter, faster, more at home in the here and now. Not to mention that she was sane. Oh, she supposed there were some who would debate that, given her hair-trigger temper. But she was at least saner than he was, this man who’d been buried alive for more than fifty centuries.
It wasn’t his fault he was out of his freaking mind, she thought. But that thought, too, she shoved aside.
She started to turn, intending to track him down by following the essence he left in his wake, but then she paused, brought to halt by the vision still unfolding in her head.
Utana himself, his wet bedsheet toga dragging the ground, his long black hair clinging to his powerful shoulders and rain-damp chest, climbing down from the truck and walking slowly among the dead. She felt the waves of regret washing over him with so much force that they left him weak. She felt the tears burning in his eyes. And there were, inexplicably, answering tears welling up in her own.
And then, from directly behind her, he said, “Do you see? The humans—they gave me no choice.”
Her head came up fast, chills racing up her spine at his presence. How? How had he snuck up on her like that? Why hadn’t she felt his approach as she would feel the approach of anyone—mortal or vampire? Had he learned to block his vibrations from others? And at such close range? Impossible.
She turned to face him, trying to erase any hint of fear from her expression. Her eyes were level with his massive chest, and she had to tip her head back to focus on his face.
He met her eyes, and his flashed with recognition. “Brigit. The sister of James.”
“Yes.”
He lowered his head, perhaps unable to hold her gaze, and she sensed he might be ashamed of what he had done. “You are sent for to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me of your brother and his Lucy. Are they …?”
“They’re fine.”
Unmistakable and unspeakable regret flashed in the depths of his gleaming jet-black eyes. “I wish not to harm you, sister of James.”
“Don’t worry, Utana. You won’t.”
He blinked twice, a frown appearing between his brows. But as he lifted his head and met her eyes again, she saw something more there. A hint of a spark. Perhaps he was rising to the challenge.
“I wish there were another way,” she said. “I hate having to do this to you.”
He almost smiled as he repeated her own words back to her. “Don’t worry, Brigit. You won’t.” And then his teeth bared in a full-on grin. He was very pleased with himself, no doubt at his flawless repetition, right down to the inflection and tone.
She lifted a hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb, as he spun and raced across the rooftop, putting some distance between them. She focused on him, flicked her fingers open and released the powerful, deadly beam from her eyes.
As if he felt it coming, Utana tucked and rolled, dodging the flash of laser like light. The chimney behind him exploded. Bricks flew like enormous pieces of shrapnel, but he blocked them with one arm, even as he turned and fired a beam from his own eyes in her general direction.
Brigit dove out of the way, and Utana’s blast of energy blew past her and kept going until it hit a window across the street, shattering it.
Below, the workers cleaning up after the massacre scrambled for cover. People shouted from their crouched positions, looking up and pointing.
From behind a vent fan, Brigit launched another bolt of destructive energy, then raced to the rear of the building. Even as he shot a beam back at her, she jumped, plummeting downward and landing hard in a low crouch that did little to absorb the teeth-jarring impact.
Springing upright again, she ran. Her feet pounded the pavement as she poured on every ounce of human speed she possessed, eager to lead Utana away from anyone who might be harmed in the cross fire. Not that there was any love lost between her and humankind. But her vampire family would frown on unnecessary bloodshed.
Except for Aunt Rhiannon, of course. She would love it.
Brigit dashed down an alley, trying hard to tune out the stench coming from the trash bins as she did. Behind her, she heard Utana land barefoot on the pavement, and an instant later he was hurling power after her like Zeus hurling lightning bolts after an unrepentant sinner, as she zigged and zagged to avoid being blown to bits.
Ducking behind a building, she pressed her back to the brick, panting hard to catch her breath. But not for long. She popped her head out just long enough to return fire, then jerked it back behind the wall again. Once, twice, three times. Each blast of power sucked more vital energy from her. More life force. More strength. She wondered if it was the same for him.
Peering out from behind the building once more, she didn’t see him, so she made a dash for the edge of town.
He followed, no longer firing, just running.
Yes, she thought. Using his power of destruction must drain him, too. And he’d annihilated many already tonight. She had the advantage. Except that she was pretty sure he’d been stronger to begin with.
Running onward, she knew she needed more speed, more force. Though it would rob her of precious energy, she paused to call her vampiric self up to the surface. Her jaw began to pulse and throb as her incisors elongated themselves, and her entire body prickled with newly heightened sensation. And then, fully vamped out, she ran full bore. The preternatural burst of speed would, she knew, make her appear as no more than a blur in the eyes of a human.
And, she hoped, in the eyes of the first immortal, as well.
Miles melted away, but Brigit didn’t stop until she stood in a wooded glen. There was a pond. There were trees. A nearly full moon hung low in the sky. It would be dawn soon. Leaning against a tree, she hung her head, caught her breath, let her body return to her more natural state. Her fangs retracted. Her skin felt almost numb in comparison to the heightened sensitivity of vampire flesh and nerve.
“I will wait until … you make ready.”
She straightened, spun. And there he stood, tall and straight and barely winded. “God,” she muttered.
“Utana,” he corrected. “You are … powerful warrior. Strong. Smart. I expected not such challenge from one so beautiful.”
“Don’t try to distract me with empty flattery, Utana. It won’t work.”
He frowned, tipping his head to one side as if trying to understand the meaning of her words. “I ask again—do not make me kill you, woman.”
She met his eyes, then had to look away. They were black as night, deep and full of misery. “You murdered dozens of my people.”
“All my years—as priest, as king, as soldier, as flood survivor, as immortal—all my years, I tell you, never did I kill when I was able to find another way. But—this time, no choice was I given. The will of the Anunaki must be obeyed.”
She felt his heart twisting with his words, as if he were holding back an emotional storm. There was pain in this man, and she hated that she could feel it. She didn’t know why, and wished it would go away, so she tried to close her mind to his. “There has to be another way,” she whispered.
“Another way, yes. A living death for me. I want only release, Brigit of the Vahmpeers. Release for the vahmpeers, as well. To release from the curse of living as demons, hated by the gods, forced to exist on the power of mortal blood. It is damnation for them. You cannot see with the wisdom of one as old as I, woman. But I remove your peoples’ curse as I remove my own. I wish only to join them in the Land of the Dead, where we will make our peace. I cannot know that blessed release until I obey the will of the gods and destroy the last of the vahmpeers.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Yes, I fear it is so.” He sent a blast, but she felt it coming.
And even as she lunged out of the line of fire, she realized with stunning clarity that she had known he was going to blast her before he had made a move.
That apparent psychic bond she’d been cursing only seconds earlier had enabled her to read him.
She hid behind a fragrant pine, hands braced on its sticky trunk, and she tried not to think before acting. She decided she would attack on impulse, without a plan, while reading his intentions as they formed.
Popping out from behind the tree, she fired and scored a direct hit. The beam slammed the big man in his abdomen, the force of it bending him in two and launching him backward through the air. He hit a boulder and sank to the ground, only to roll to the side as she sent a second shot.
She ducked as he shot back. Her pine tree cover, five feet behind her by then, blew apart and went crashing to the forest floor, forming a huge barrier between her and Utana. Dashing to another cluster of trees, Brigit shot again, blindly this time, and then she ran on.
It must have looked, from above, as if an invisible giant were stomping across the forest, each step snapping trees as if they were toothpicks.
And yet no further hits were scored. He pursued her, his pain washing over her in waves that were almost as debilitating to her as they must have been to him. God, why did she feel him so powerfully?
He was getting closer. Brigit turned, lifted a hand to fire and felt an enormous force, like gravity times ten, pulling her straight to her knees. She shot all the same, but he sidestepped the blast and walked slowly toward her.
Lifting her head, she watched him approach. She raised her hand, palm up, but for the life of her she could not generate enough energy for more than a slight flash from her eyes. It made a popping sound as it crested in the air between them.
Utana reached her and then sank to his knees, as well, facing her. They knelt there, as close as they could be without touching. Their eyes met, locked. “I can … fight … no more,” he whispered.
“Neither can I.”
Three panting breaths, and then his hand cupped the back of her head and he brought her face to his, smashing his mouth to hers, kissing her with all he had. Several days’ beard brushed soft against her chin, and they tumbled to the ground, limbs entwined, as fire burned in Brigit’s veins and she wondered just what the hell had come over her—over him.
Exhaustion won out over passion in the end. Their kiss, though heated, began to cool, as, wrapped up in each other, they sank into an exhausted slumber on the floor of the decimated forest.
When Brigit stirred some hours later, the sun was beating down. The birds were singing a riotous chorus.
And Utana was gone.
She got to her feet and stood in silence, absently brushing the leaves and twigs from her clothes, and turning in a slow circle. But he was nowhere near. She didn’t feel him anymore.
She relived the battle, her mind replaying every blast she’d sent and every one he’d returned. She walked back through the forest, noting where she’d been standing, running, diving, with the benefit of clear-minded hindsight.
Swallowing hard, she shook her head. He could have had her. At least three different times, she realized, she’d been exposed. An easy target, her back to him. And he’d sent bolts of power, not at her, but at nearby trees, toppling them.
He could have killed her. But he hadn’t.
And then she relived that kiss. That earth-shattering, mind-blowing kiss.
“Damn, what am I doing?” She pushed a hand through her hair, and closed her eyes.
Utana had managed to force his eyes open before the sun rose. Pain still throbbed in his body from the single blow she had landed in their battle of the night before. And yet, as he’d studied the beautiful woman in his arms, he was overcome with feelings that were counter to his purpose. He told himself that it was little more than the natural urge to possess her. That any man would feel the same. It was only nature. He was male, she was female. And he wanted to take her, there on the floor of the wooded glen.
And yet, from within, came the knowledge that he denied and refused to hear. The same knowledge that had held him back from destroying her, and had made him hurl his bolts far from her soft and pleasing form.
Passion he could understand. Tenderness? For his enemy? No, that would not do. And while he wanted her, and thought she might not object too strongly should he take her, he held back. He told himself that it was because to mount her here and now would mean to stir her to wakefulness. And then the battle between them would no doubt begin again. And he was still in more pain than he cared to be—for a fight.
She was no ordinary woman. Perhaps she would not be owned. Indeed, according to James, women in this strange world were equal to men and able to choose. He’d thought it a joke. But truly, he had never known a woman like this one. She might very well be the equal of any man he’d ever known. At least in battle.
Perhaps in passion, as well. The kiss they had shared had been as eagerly returned as received. And fiery, too.
But no, he had a mission—a mission of the utmost urgency, assigned him by the Anunaki. He’d suffered too much at their hands to give up on the task they had given him. And truly, there must be just cause. The gods would not order the destruction of an entire race unless it were truly necessary.
He could not doubt them. He had to do as they decreed. He would not defy them again, for the suffering he had known for doing so once—just once—had been beyond human endurance. Should he cross them again, he could not even imagine what punishments might await him.
And so it was that he eased himself from the embrace of the sleeping female and rose carefully to his feet. For a moment he stood looking down at her as she slept, one hand pressed to his belly, where the skin was burned to black. Her hair was the color of sunlight. Pale yellow gold, and there were leaves of green and gold clinging to its curls. Her eyes, closed now, were the most unusual eyes he had ever seen. His people, all he had known, had eyes the color of onyx stone. Black eyes, to match their hair and their brows. But Brigit—she had eyes like the eyes of Enlil, the God of Air and Sky. Palest blue, with rims of black outlining the color. Her eyes seemed as if they could see through him.
Wise, she was.
Perhaps her words ought to be heeded.
No. She was woman, working on his resolve as only a woman could do. He tore himself away and began trekking through the forest. He needed to distance himself from the beautiful warrioress Brigit, because when near her, he could sense nothing else. Even his pain faded beneath the onslaught of that which was her. Her scent, her vitality. With distance, he would once again be able to home in on the essence of the surviving vahmpeers and resume his pursuit of them.
He hated the task that lay before him. He resented the gods for putting it upon him. And yet he dared not refuse.
Miles later, though, it was still Brigit he felt even as he emerged from the forest onto a road. She had filled his senses, leaving room for nothing else. He was in terrible condition. His clothing, the white robe James had called “toga” was filthy. Dry now, at least. But filthy. His body likewise.
He paused then, beside the road, and tipped his head up to the heavens. “I have no offering to proffer,” he said in his own tongue. The new one still felt awkward to him, despite his ability to learn facts by touching objects. “Yet I beg of you, ancient and mighty ones—take this task from me. Allow my offspring to live. Free me of this curse. Surely I have suffered long enough.”
He closed his eyes and waited for a sign. When none came, he sighed, resolved, and tried again. “If you will not relieve me of this mission, then at least provide me with the means to achieve it. I require shelter. Clothing. Food.”
Again he closed his eyes, and waited.
He did not have to wait long. One of the humans’ mechanized carts rolled to a stop beside him, and even as he stood there watching, a man got out. He was tall and very lean, and his eyes were the color of pale stone. He bore a battle scar upon his face that spoke of power. Utana recognized the man—had met him once before. The man emerged from the cart—car, Utana corrected himself mentally—and stood facing him.
As Utana stared at the man, preparing himself to blast him should he move aggressively, the newcomer dropped to one knee, genuflecting, lowered his head and said, “Oh, great and mighty King Ziasudra. It is indeed an honor to kneel before you.”
Utana felt his brows lift. The rush of pleasure at hearing his old name, even spoken in such a terrible accent, and at being addressed as was befitting a king, was tinged by doubt and suspicion.
But he withheld judgment, watchful and wary. “Rise, mortal, and tell me what you want of me.”
The scar-faced man lifted his head but did not rise. “Better to ask what you want of me. Do you remember me, my lord?”
“You were held captive by Brigit of the Vahmpeers. You were among those she called … vi-gi-lants.”
“Vigilantes, yes. And it was you who set me free. You saved my life, my king. And now I can finally repay that debt. If you will allow it.”
Utana shrugged. “What do you want of me?”
“You are the Ancient One, the flood survivor, Utanapishtim, are you not? The first immortal? Beloved of the gods?”
Utana narrowed his eyes on the human. “I am. But that does not tell me who you are, nor how you know these things that few mortals of your time know.”
“My name is Nash Gravenham-Bail,” the man said. “I have been awaiting your coming, which was foretold to the leaders of my nation. I am a powerful man within my government, my king. But as of right now, I am your servant, sent to tend to you on behalf of my president.”
Utana frowned. The leaders of this world knew of his resurrection? “I know not … pres-ee-dent.”
“It’s our word for king.”
“Ah.” Then the king of this land knew of him, as well?
“Will you come with me?” the man went on, still down on one knee. “I have a house for you. Food. Clothing. All you require and more.”
“Why?” Utana asked. “Why wish you … to help me, human?”
The man lowered his eyes. “I don’t blame you for being suspicious of me, my friend. The truth is, my president and I have no love for the vampires you’ve come to destroy. He wishes to honor you as is befitting a ruler, even one from another time.”
“And you?” Utana asked.
The man bowed his head. “I, too, believe in the old gods, the Anunaki. Enki, Enlil, the great Anu, the fierce Inanna. I, too, wish to do their will, to solicit their blessings in this world where few even know their names. Helping you will give me a way to please them. I believe it is what they want of me.” He licked his lips, perhaps nervously. “And as I’ve already said, you saved my life when you freed me from the vampires. And I am deeply grateful for that.”
At last, Utana thought. Something he could understand, something he could relate to. And yet, he must be cautious. This world was not his own, and this human, though they had met before, was still a stranger to him.
He would go with this man, but he would exercise extreme wariness and care. But he was wise and powerful enough, he thought, to risk it. And the rewards of food, of shelter, of a base from which to work while he healed from the painful wound delivered by the lovely warrior woman Brigit, were far too tempting to resist.
“Be it so,” he said to the man. “My vizier, you shall be. Rise, Nashmun,” he went on, giving the man a name he preferred, “and serve me well.” As the man stood upright again, Utana leaned close. He stared intently into the human’s cold gray eyes. “Betray me not, Nashmun. My wrath knows no mercy.”
4
Near Washington, D.C.
At 7:00 a.m., in a truck stop not known for safety, Roxy, wearing a black pageboy wig and large round glasses, along with skintight leggings, a leather jacket and matching boots, sat at a table in the back and waited. She looked like Velma from Scooby-Doo, if Velma had joined a biker gang. The senator came in, looking nervous as hell, and as out of place as a goldfish in a barracuda tank. She clicked through the place in her sensible two-inch navy blue pumps that matched her blazer that matched her skirt, looking around in the most obvious manner possible.
“Shit,” Roxy muttered. She quickly got up and made her way past the crowd of patrons, mostly large men and a few large women, talking loudly, chugging coffee and eating meals big enough to feed a small third-world village. She gripped the senator by the forearm and leaned in close. “Could you be more obvious?”
With a sharp look her way, the senator frowned. “Are you—”
“Endora,” Roxy said. She’d had to pick a phony name when she’d emailed the senator, and her favorite TV witch had seemed like a good enough choice. “We need to make this fast.”
“I’m all for that.”
“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”
“Yes.”
Roxy stopped walking, sent her a look.
“My private security guy, the guy who screens my email. And no one else. I wasn’t going to come here alone.”
Roxy glanced toward the entry, a big glass door.
“He took the limo around back, but I can get him back here fast if needed.”
“Gave you a panic button, did he?”
The senator averted her eyes. “Your message said this was about my new committee post. That you have information I need. What is it?”
She was a pretty thing, Roxy thought. And she had that idealistic fire in her eyes she’d glimpsed before in young politicians. Before they’d been around long enough to have it extinguished by the good ol’ boys who wanted to keep the status quo.
“This way.”
The two made their way to the table in the back, and Roxy slid into her chair and shoved a mug of coffee across the table. “I ordered for you.”
“I prefer tea.”
“You drink coffee today.”
Roxy sipped her own, and the senator followed suit. Without further delay, Roxy said, “There’s a former mental hospital called St. Dymphna’s in Mount Bliss, Virginia, that’s been commandeered by the DPI. You know about the DPI, right?”
The senator blinked rapidly, lowered her eyes. “I’m afraid that’s—”
“Classified. I know that. Look, Ms. MacBride, I don’t need you to tell me anything. I already know. I’m just trying to determine how much you know.”
“I … know a lot.”
“Not as much as you think, I’ll bet, so I’ll start at the beginning, and that’s the DPI. Division of Paranormal Investigations. A black ops division of the CIA in charge of investigating vampires. It’s been committing the kinds of crimes against other living beings over the past couple of centuries that make Saddam Hussein look like Mother Theresa. Only difference being their victims were vampires. Not humans.”
The woman’s eyes widened as she searched Roxy’s.
“Yeah, I can see that’s something you didn’t know. Well, here’s the thing. Right now they’re rounding up all the human beings with the Belladonna Antigen and stashing them in St. Dymphna’s.”
The senator swallowed hard. “Humans with the antigen have been targeted by … vampires more than any other group of—”
“That’s bullshit. Propaganda. Who told you that?”
“It’s part of the research I was given by—”
“Research. Their research has been done by capturing perfectly innocent people who happen to be vampires and torturing them. Killing them. Experimenting on them.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are or why you think I’d believe—”
She’d started to get up, but Roxy gripped her wrist and jerked her back into her seat. “Humans with the Belladonna Antigen are the only ones capable of becoming vampires. Vampires sense them, and are compelled to watch over and protect them—even if it’s to their own detriment. They can’t help themselves. They’re incapable of harming the Chosen, which is what they call those people.”
Senator MacBride held Roxy’s eyes. “Are you sure about this?”
“I’m the oldest living person with the antigen,” Roxy told her. “I’m sure. Vampires have saved my life many times over the years, and I’ve seen them do the same for others. They’re my friends. Not evil. Not monsters. And no matter what the DPI tells you, those humans being rounded up and stuck in that asylum are not there for their own protection.”
“Then why …?”
“I don’t know. But whatever the reason, you can bet it isn’t good. You need to look into this.”
The senator nodded. “I will.”
“Don’t take too long.” Roxy pushed away from the table, dragged a twenty from her pocket and slapped it down. Then she headed for the restroom at the end of a long narrow hallway in the back. Glancing behind her to make sure she was unobserved, she ducked into the men’s room, rather than the women’s, and moved quickly into the second stall. Unseen. Perfect. She pulled large jeans and a pillow for padding out of the bag she’d stashed there earlier, switched her jacket for a bigger one, ditched the wig and glasses, donned a moustache and beard, pulled on a billed cap with a bulldog logo on the front, and headed out again. She walked right by the senator on her way out, and the woman didn’t even give her a second glance. She was on the phone, probably with her security guy.
Outside, Roxy saw what had to be the senator’s car pulling to a stop. Off to one side a man in a long dark coat stood watching. Not the senator’s bodyguard. Someone else.
Roxy had known this was dangerous. She was glad she’d taken the precautions she had. Because either Senator Marlene MacBride was being watched …
… or she was.
Near Bangor, Maine
Brigit stood high on the hilltop, overlooking the winding road below, and watched as Utana spoke with a tall male mortal. The man’s back was toward her, and she observed only that he was thin and wearing a brown “duck” type coat against the chill of the early morning. He drove a big SUV, dark green in color. It fit in here, just as his coat did. Perhaps he was a local. One of those bleeding heart, trusting types who took in strangers.
The idiot didn’t know what kind of power he was playing with. Or what kind of danger. Utana was a time bomb. A killing machine with a warped mind.
There’s so much more to him than that.
Now where had that thought come from?
Utana’s face was visible in the early-morning sun. She’d deliberately stayed far enough away that she hoped he wouldn’t sense her, but God knew she could still sense him. Not the killing machine part of him, but the man. The man who, she realized, had wept at the sight of all the carnage he’d caused. The man who’d kissed her as if she were the first shelter he’d seen on an endless trek across a burning desert. As if she were his first sip of water.
And she had to kill him.
God, what the hell was wrong with the world, anyway?
She sighed and dragged her attention back to the scene unfolding below. In spite of her mission, she found herself feeling ridiculously glad some Good Samaritan was taking pity on the once great king. Oh, she had no doubt the guy would regret it later, once he realized that Utana was completely off his rocker—a fact the stranger should have picked up on from the simple fact that Utana was wearing a filthy bedsheet like a toga.
Wait, something was happening. The local was opening the passenger side door of his SUV. Holding it as if he expected Utana to get in.
Hell, no, Brigit thought. There was no way he would trust a stranger, much less a mortal one.
Utana turned then, gazing in her direction as if he sensed her there. She sidestepped, ducking behind a bushy-boughed sentinel pine.
And then she heard him, speaking to her with his mind as clearly as if he were standing beside her, saying his words into her ear, his voice deep and resonant and sending chills up her spine.
I will not kill you yet, Brigit of the Vahmpeers. His thoughts were clear, their meaning overriding his broken English. When I have done the rest, I will ask the Anunaki to spare you. Perhaps they will agree.
A red haze of fury rose up in her, and she stepped out from behind the tree. You’ll let me live to see all those I love die before me? And you’re expecting my gratitude for that?
It is all I can do.
He lowered his head, bent low to get into the car.
Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going? Don’t you know better than to trust strangers? Hey!
But he got into the car anyway, and the man closed the passenger door, then went around to the driver’s side and got in. The car moved away, and Brigit had no idea where it was taking her quarry.
She was cold, tired, hungry and pissed. She was frustrated as all hell and wishing for a way to shirk the duty that had fallen to her to carry out. And she had a long walk on her hands, back to Bangor where she’d left her car and her supplies.
But she needed to know where this idiot was taking Utana before she acted on any of those pressing matters. And so she set off on foot, calling on her superhuman—though not quite vampiric—levels of speed and endurance to pull it off.
She followed the SUV to a small no-tell motel on the outskirts of Bangor, grateful that they were at least heading in the same general direction as her car. The two men got out and opened a door a third of the way along the single-story motel. Room 6, she noted.
And then, as she stood there, an aroma turned her head around. There was a diner across the street. Her stomach growled like a pit bull at the smell of used French fry grease. God, she needed food. She didn’t know what was going on in that motel room, but she would have a clear view of it from the diner. She could watch just as easily from a table along the front wall, with a big fat plate of empty calories in front of her, right?
Right.
So she straightened away from the telephone pole she’d been leaning against and walked across the cracked blacktop to the greasy spoon.
She laughed, because that really was the name of the place. The Greasy Spoon.
The bell above the door jangled when she walked in, and a woman said, “Just sit wherever you want, hon. Coffee?”
“Yeah. A gallon or so,” Brigit answered without looking.
Then she slid into a booth along the front, her eyes still on the motel across the street.
A filled coffee mug clunked down in front of her. “Are you the wife, or the P.I. working for the wife?” the waitress asked.
Brigit darted a glance the other woman’s way and got stuck. She’d expected the clichéd red or blond beehive with pencils sticking out. Instead, she saw a careworn face, silver-gray curls and a smoker’s wrinkled upper lip. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re watching that mo-tel like it’s gonna get up and run off if you turn your head. You got a husband having a fling behind your back?”
“Oh.” She got it now. “No, no husband.” She showed off a bare ring finger. “Just a friend I’m going to, uh … surprise.”
“Uh-huh. You want food?”
“Something fast. What’s ready?”
“French toast can be on your plate in ten minutes.”
“Make it five and I’ll double your tip.”
“Deal.”
Four minutes later Brigit was wolfing down a stack of syrup-drenched, piping hot, buttery French toast that was actually pretty damned good.
She slugged down the coffee, getting up and digging in her pockets for cash.
“The breakfast is five bucks honey,” the woman called from behind the counter. “And here’s a coffee to go, on me.” She slid a capped, extra-large cup across the counter.
“Thanks. I’m grateful.” Tossing two fives onto the counter, Brigit grabbed the cup and turned. She needed the caffeine boost. She was blocking her presence from Utana as thoroughly as she could, mentally maintaining an invisible and impenetrable shield around her aura. It was exhausting, and yet vital.
The men were still in the motel room. What the hell were they doing in there?
She left the diner, cup in hand, and glanced up and down the winding road. The motel was covered in white clapboard siding, with brick-red trim, shutters and doors. Each door bore a metallic, gold-toned number. A sidewalk ran along the front, and the semicircular strip of blacktopped parking had room for one vehicle per door.
A smaller, square detached structure bore a sign that said Office.
Behind it, there was a big empty rolling field full of brambles, briars and weeds. And that, she supposed, was where she was going to have to go. Sighing in resignation, she headed up the road until she rounded a bend and was out of sight. Then she jumped the ditch and jogged far enough into the giant weed patch to be invisible, and from there she began making her way back toward the motel.
She emerged from the weeds directly behind it and began counting the windows, trying to match them up with the doors in the front. When she got to the one she thought went with Room 6, she crept closer.
The window was a little too high for her, but she located a loose cinder block beneath the oblong fuel tank in the back, dragged it closer and stood on it. She took a quick peek inside, then ducked down, blinking in shock.
Her eyes had registered the following: Big. Male. Naked. Wet. And effin’ ripped. The makeshift toga had been hiding a chest that made her heart beat faster and a backside that made her knees go weak. Damn.
Drawing a breath, she closed her eyes slowly, then opened them again and peered through the slightly fogged glass one more time.
Utana was standing beside a shower stall, staring at it as if in wonder. He was buck naked, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She had a three-quarter view, and it was the shoulders that got her first. Rippling, bulging, beautiful. Every muscle was visible beneath his smooth, tanned, hairless skin. Then his chest, broad and thick, and then the abs … And as he turned a little more, the blackened section of skin where her blast had hit home. As she focused there, she felt the pain he was still in. He was trying to overcome it, trying to function in spite of it, and, for the most part, he was succeeding in keeping it buried.
He was one powerful man.
Her gaze slid downward—down to his pelvic bones and …
Oh, for the love of … well, it figured he would be hung like a stallion, didn’t it?
She blinked and forced herself to look elsewhere. But it was not safe. His hard butt had just enough curve and dimpled inward at the sides. His thighs were like tree trunks. His calves like banded steel.
God, all right already. She had work to do here.
She had to kill him. She had to destroy that beautiful work of art just beyond the glass. She could probably do it right then. He was so busy staring at the shower, as if he were completely awestruck by the device he’d just made use of. His hair was still wet. He’d shaved at some point. That was probably what had been taking so long. She didn’t imagine his newfound pal had had an easy time showing him how.
Utana dragged a towel from the rack and wiped himself down with it, taking great care on his injured belly.
And then he turned to the sink and twisted the faucets as if for the first time, like a child. As the water ran, he cupped his hands beneath it, and a smile split his face wide. He cranked the faucets off, then back on, then off again.
A moment later he was doing the same with the light switch. On, off, on, off.
Brigit lifted her hand, palm up, fingers loosely resting against her thumb.
His white teeth were perfect, the joy on his face exquisite, despite his pain. He flicked the light a few more times, then gazed at the toilet. Bending, he picked up the lid and stared inside. His smile faded. A frown drew his glorious black brows together as he studied it, tipping his head this way and that. He lifted the tank lid, peeking inside, and his frown grew deeper. Replacing the tank lid, he hit the handle, and with a whoosh the toilet flushed. He jumped back, eyes going wide, and then that smile reappeared. Closing his eyes, he placed both hands on the tank and closed his eyes as if listening, or feeling for something.
Of course, she reminded herself. He could understand how something worked by laying his hands on it, absorbing the information by touch. That was what he was doing now.
Eventually he took his hands away. “Ahh, that is what you do,” he said, his voice loud enough for her to hear beyond the glass. “I guessed well.”
Brigit drew a deep breath and began calling up power from the depths of her. She waited to feel it rising up through her feet, heating her legs, filtering into her spine like magma rising through a volcanic chamber. But it didn’t.
Utana was done with the toilet now. He was picking up articles of clothing that had, apparently, been provided to him by the local Samaritan. He held up the trousers and looked at them doubtfully.
Turning, he yanked open the bathroom door and strode, naked, back into the room, apparently complaining about the pants.
Out of sight. Out of reach. She’d had the chance to save her people, and she had let it slip away. Again. What the hell was wrong with her?
Oh, but that smile … those eyes … told her more clearly than anything what was wrong with her.
She’d stopped seeing him as a killing machine. She’d seen him, just now, as a man. A man who could feel joy in the wonder of hot and cold running water, and electric lights. Like an innocent child, rather than a ruthless killer. A man whose death would mean his return to a state that was a lot like being buried alive.
Exactly like being buried alive.
No one deserved that, did they? Surely there had to be another way.
Slowly she withdrew from the window. She was going to have to follow them still farther, because she was certain now that this motel was not their final destination. If only she had her car.
“My king, you are about to experience something you’ve never even imagined.”
Utana was feeling much better since his bathing, though still hurting immensely from Brigit’s blast. He ignored the pain—something a warrior and king must become adept at doing. It was part, he thought, of being alive, being in a body again. And after being trapped without one for so long, he appreciated even the pain. He felt good, too, about his cleanly shaven face and the minty taste the “teeth-brushing” had left in his mouth, despite still being exhausted, in pain and uncomfortable in the modern clothing he’d reluctantly agreed to wear. The pants, in particular, felt confining and strange.
He looked across the car at his newfound vizier, doubt in his eyes. “You know not the wonder of my … imagines.”
“True enough.” Nashmun was driving, but he pointed up at the sky with one hand. “Have you ever imagined that?”
Scooting lower in the leather seat of the car, Utana tipped his head to stare skyward as the odd-looking bird passed overhead, and he nodded. “Yes, the large birds who soar, but whose wings do not move. I have seen and wondered on these.”
“They’re not birds, my friend. They are airplanes. Very much like the car in which you are riding now. They are machines, made by man, to take us from place to place. But instead of traveling on the ground, as we do in the car, the airplanes fly through the air.”
Utana shot him a look, then craned his neck to see the bird again. “It is not possible.”
“Of course it is. We’re going to ride in one very soon, to take us to your new home.”
“We are … to fly?”
“Yes. You’ll love it.”
Shaking his head as the airplane-bird moved out of sight, vanishing into the clouds, Utana said, “It is a strange world.”
“I’m sure it is. Your English is coming along beautifully, however.”
With a grunt and a nod at the device on the seat beside him, Utana nodded. “The voice that speaks into my ears is … help.”
“It’s an iPod. And the word you want is helpful.”
“Helpful. Yes.” He studied the man, his stomach fluttering with excitement over what was to come, and yet his mind was occupied with matters far more important. And one beautiful woman whose kiss still lingered on his lips. “Where do we fly?”
“There’s a house awaiting you—almost a palace, really. It’s where certain foreign royals stay when they visit my nation’s leader. And I’ve procured it for our use for … well, for as long as we’re likely to need it.”
A palace. It was certainly time, Utana thought. He had been treated with far less respect than his station demanded by the people of this land so far. And yet that, too, wasn’t his highest priority. “In … the direction of north?”
“South, actually.”
Utana shook his head firmly. “I must go north. My mission lies in the north.”
Nashmun sent him a steady look. His eyes appeared honest. “I want to help you in your mission, my king. But you need a home base. A place from which to plan and launch your attack. You need to heal from that wound you have,” he said, with a nod at Utana’s midsection. “And to regain your strength, and learn more about the way this world works and how to make your way in it.”
“They will escape me. I will know not how to find them again.”
“You can feel them. Sense them. Can’t you?” Nashmun shrugged, not awaiting a reply. “Besides, I doubt it will be necessary. They’ll be sending someone after you before long, if they haven’t already.”
Utana lifted his brows. “Someone?”
“An assassin. To kill you, Utana. They know you have no choice but to wipe them out. And they will try to murder you before you get the chance.” Nashmun tightened his grip on the wheel that let him steer the car. “That’s what kind of scum we’re dealing with here. They’re not human. They don’t have human emotions, or even common decency. They would do this, take the life of the man who created them—a man who should be as a god to them, a man they should fall on their knees and worship—they would take the life of their own king, their own father, in order to protect their own putrid existence.”
Utana lowered his head. Indeed, the man was correct. His people had already sent an “assassin” to try to kill him. A fiery, powerful, sexy assassin he would rather ravage than battle.
And yet, he couldn’t really blame the vahmpeers for doing so. He had, after all, destroyed a great many of their kind.
“It will be better to let them run awhile,” Nashmun was saying. “Let them find a haven they think is secure. They’ll start to think they’ve escaped you, start to relax their defenses a bit. Meanwhile, we will be gathering information. We’ll know everything about where they are and how many of them remain. When we move in, we’ll take them by surprise.”
“Not we, Nashmun. I. I will be the one to send them to their deaths.”
Nashmun shrugged. “As you wish, my king. But either way, it will be easy. Fast. One attack, and it will be done. And then you can live out your days in peace, knowing that when you die, the gods will allow you entry into the Land of the Dead, where you will find rest at long last.”
“I will not live long past my children,” he said. “I have no wish to do so.”
Utana lowered his head, his heart bleeding in his chest at the thought of finishing the task he had already begun. Oddly, his first attack on the vahmpeers had not hurt him the way only thinking of the next one did. It had not hurt him at all. His mind had not been fully restored then, he thought. He had lashed out like a long-caged and oft-tormented lion, whose door has been left open. It had felt like release.
Now it felt like a crime. Even though he knew it was the will of the gods, it felt wrong in his soul. And he wished with all he was that there was some other way. Even though he knew there was not.
“You’re injured and weak, my king. In only a few hours you will be home. I promise, you’ll be glad you let me help you.”
Utana nodded, then let his head rest against the back of the seat. He was injured. Brigit’s white-hot power had delivered a powerful blow. He’d used every bit of energy he could raise to keep her from killing him. And there was simply nothing left.
“That’s it, my king. You relax. Try to get some sleep. It’s all going to be better in no time. You’ll have food, servants, a physician to examine your wounds. You’ll be treated the way a man of your stature deserves. And you’ll be far more equal to your task when you recover and regain your strength. I promise.”
5
Brigit followed, still on foot. She was exhausted from her battle with Utana. Fighting the oldest immortal had drained her. Predictable, but she tended to see herself as ten feet tall and bulletproof.
Only in hindsight had it hit her between the eyes like a damned mallet that he most likely could have annihilated her if he’d wanted to. But he hadn’t. She had landed a blast. He was probably hurting like hell. Unless he healed rapidly like she and her brother did. Or during the day, the way vampires did. Or if he’d used the healing power he’d taken from her brother, James, to heal himself. If he even knew how.
She wondered about that. About the extent of his powers. About the whys and wherefores of how his brand of immortality worked. She wondered if even he knew the answers to those questions. He was the only one of his kind, after all. Who the hell was he going to ask?
She knew that feeling a little too well. Yet another thing they had in common, she and the big guy. The beam of light from the eyes—the power to ‘splode things, as she’d put it when she was a toddler, just figuring it out and getting yelled at for damn near every little explosion. The immortality, or at least, for her and J.W., apparent immortality. And the lack of anyone else in the world like them.
Of course, she had J.W. But he wasn’t really like her, either. His power was a good one. He was the healer. Hers was the opposite. She was a destroyer.
Like Utana.
He must have missed her on purpose. There was no question. His aim wasn’t that bad. He certainly hadn’t missed any members of that S.W.A.T. team that had surrounded him in downtown Bangor.
She reminded herself sternly that he hadn’t missed many of the vampires he’d attacked, either. Her friends. Her family. Tortured to the point of insanity by five thousand years of living death or not, that was unforgivable. Good to keep that in mind.
At any rate, she’d had a few hours sleep—yeah, in his arms, on the forest floor, like a pair of star-crossed lovers or some shit, but even so, she’d recovered some of her energy, even though she’d been expending it rapidly by following the big guy and his mysterious rescuer on foot ever since, all the while cloaking her presence. The food had helped, and the route the stranger was taking with his oversize green SUV helped even more. It took them right back through Bangor.
Sighing in abject relief, Brigit veered off from her pursuit. She jogged left, as they headed straight through the city, then right, into the drugstore parking lot where she’d left her baby-blue 20th anniversary edition Ford Thunderbird.
God, she loved her car. She had the key ring in her hand before she reached it, hit the remote starter button and unlocked the doors. By the time she slid behind the wheel, her baby was purring and ready. Relief washed over her like a warm bath. Another thing she was missing. For just a moment she leaned back against the headrest, closed her eyes and breathed.
Yes, she had inherited superhuman strength from the vampiric side of her ancestry. She could run very fast, and very far. But it wasn’t as easy for her as it was for her Undead relatives. She had to breathe, her heart had to pump, it wasn’t the same at all. It took a lot out of her.
But her pursuit was not yet ended. And her respite had to be brief.
Without wasting any more time, she got back on their trail, pulling out of the lot, then zooming along the side street parallel to Main, until she reached the edge of town and headed toward the highway. She could still see the tail end of the green SUV up ahead. Pressing down on the gas, Brigit thrilled to the roar of the engine and the feeling of power beneath her. She didn’t even have to max out her horsepower, though, before she caught up enough to be sure she wouldn’t lose them
She eased off the accelerator, keeping a safe distance and hoping Utana wouldn’t notice her so near. If she let her focus waver, even a little, he might sense her. She certainly felt him. He was a keen, sizzling awareness that seemed to come to life in every cell of her body. Every nerve ending seemed acutely attuned to his energy. His life force. His … aura. The closer she got to him, the more her skin tingled and prickled and felt. Every part of her was uncomfortably aware. Like when her teeth became sensitive to heat and cold. That kind of overpowering feeling, of being too sensitive, too aware. Too … vulnerable. Yes, vulnerable. Damn, she didn’t like that at all.
The SUV was turning off. Okay, okay, she needed to stop getting so distracted. She frowned as she approached the exit, noting the signs for Eastern Main Airport. She assumed they meant “airport” in the loosest sense of the word, because they were, at this point, in the middle of nowhere, and because this was not a place she’d ever heard of. It clearly wasn’t a commercial airport.
Good God, they were going to fly? The Good Samaritan was going to get a surprise when he tried to put a five-thousand-year-old Sumerian on an airplane. Utana wasn’t all that stable on the ground, for God’s sake. He was probably going to freak.
Beyond all that, Brigit wondered again who the hell the guy in the SUV was. Her suspicion that he was more than just a helpful stranger grew bigger. Because why would a helpful stranger feed Utana, clothe him, bathe him, shave him and then drive him to an airport?
Something was going on. She should have sensed it from the start. But she’d been so busy trying to sort through all the wishy-washy emotional bullshit, not to mention the fire and brimstone sexual bullshit, in her mind that she’d missed it.
Brigit followed them, staying as far behind as she could, over a circuitous and unpaved road. They bypassed several hangars, heading instead up a side route marked plainly as private. Though she imagined this entire place was privately owned.
No one stopped her as she tagged along, keeping their dust cloud in sight. Not yet, at least.
Far ahead of her, the dirt gave way to a winding strip of pavement. The SUV came to a stop at a manned security booth. After what she assumed was a brief exchange, the zebra-striped bar blocking the way rose up to allow the SUV entry. Not much farther beyond, Brigit saw a small black jet sitting on the tarmac. She could tell from the wavering vapors it emitted that its powerful engines were running.
A private jet?
Well, that clinched it. This Good Samaritan dude was definitely not the kindhearted local yokel she’d taken him for, despite what his jeans and flannel shirt and forest-green SUV might suggest.
Were probably intended to suggest.
The two men got out. Utana was moving under his own steam, and she hated the feeling of relief that came with the sight of him. She was supposed to kill him, not wound him and then worry about whether he was feeling it.
His stance wasn’t as erect or powerful as was his norm. He was still hurting. As she watched him from a distance, she felt his pain and wondered again why the hell he didn’t use her brother’s stolen power to heal himself.
Seeing the man that way detracted from her view of him as an all-powerful, timeless, ageless, almost Satanic being. She was seeing him as a man, a wounded man, out of his time and confused. Then again, she’d been seeing him that way ever since he’d kissed her. Ever since she’d seen his childlike delight at running water and electric lights.
The two men stood for a moment, and she tried to see the look on Utana’s face as he studied the jet. God, it must be amazing to him. Beyond imagining. And yet his face and reactions were hidden from her view.
And then she was distracted. The man at the tiny booth was exiting it, looking her way, raising a walkie-talkie from his belt.
Damn.
She executed a quick U-turn and headed back to the parking lot. No garage. This airport was too small for that. She left her precious car in the lot, locking it up tight, and then jogged toward that winding strip of pavement again. As soon as she thought she was out of sight of any prying eyes she poured on the speed … and yet she was too late.
The small jet was already in motion, speeding down the runway like a black vampire bat, about to take flight.
Blow it up!
She swallowed hard, watching the plane as it roared down the runway, picking up speed. Lifting her hand, fingers to thumb, she focused her eyes on the jet.
Do it! It’s what you came here to do. Hell, it’s what you were born to do! Her inner voice commanded. Kill him. Kill them both.
She called up the power, and her hand trembled with her torn emotions. Dammit, what was she going to do? There could be innocent people on that jet. The pilot, any other passengers she may not have seen. Hell, she didn’t even know if the Good Samaritan was deserving of being blown to bits.
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Maggie Shayne
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The First Imortal Walks gain Utanapishtim has paid dearly for creating the vampire race – imprisoned in a living death for centuries, driven to near madness.With a single whitehot glance, he immolates his descendants…and the vampire Armageddon begins. Beautiful and deadly Brigit Poe, not wholly vampire but loyal to the bloodline, is called into action. Her destiny: to vanquish the oncegreat king of the immortals and save the vampire race.Soon locked in an unwinnable battle, the two warriors discover a passion so shocking it threatens every truth they’ve ever known – and seems fated to end in death and heartbreak.