I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the cleansing ritual I was performing on my wounded neck or other, murkier matters I would rather not discuss.
“It won’t happen again,” I said briskly. “But not because you won’t drink any more of my blood.”
“I won’t—” he began, but I cut him off.
“We have to be practical about this, Michael. You need blood to survive, so while we’re trying to get to the bottom of all this, I’ll keep you supplied.” I tried to smile but when I looked in the mirror, the expression on my face was far from happy. “Just think of it as my way of going Dutch once my money runs out,” I said.
“God, that’s…” He broke off, shaking his head. “I’m not going to bite you again.” He nodded at the holy water. “I know how much that stuff burns—like having your whole body doused with gasoline and torched.”
I nodded. “Good analogy. But you don’t have to bite me. Next time I’ll slit a vein and let some drain into a cup.”
“Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You make it sound so…so clinical.”
“As opposed to what?” I demanded. “We’re together like this for a reason, Michael—to find out what the hell is going on with the…with my old boss and to take our lives back. This isn’t a date and I’m not your girlfriend. This is survival. Got it?”
“Yeah, you’ve made yourself pretty damn clear.” His green eyes were filled with pain—pain I had put there but I told myself I didn’t care. I’d been in the pain business since I was sixteen; it was a little late to stop now.
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor if you want,” he said. “I mean so you don’t feel…”
“What? Threatened? Afraid?” I capped the bottle of rubbing alcohol and pointed it at him like a gun. “Let me tell you something, Michael—I’ve been killing vampires for years. So you don’t have to worry that I’m some helpless little girl that’s afraid you’ll molest her in the middle of the night. If you put a hand on me when I don’t want you to, I won’t scream rape—I’ll cut it off.”
He winced. “Translation: We can share the bed because you’re not scared of me.”
I nodded. “Bingo.”
“I guess that’s a good thing,” Michael said, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “Because I have to tell you, Kate, you scare the shit out of me.”
Chapter Eighteen
Despite my cutting little speech about not being afraid of him, it was surprisingly hard to get to sleep in a dark room knowing there was a vampire lying right beside me. Sleeping in the car had been different—there had been sunlight which I automatically associated with safety. But there was no sunlight now. And every time I happened to glance over the vast expanse of the king sized bed I could see Michael’s eyes glowing softly in the dark. Apparently he couldn’t sleep either.
I felt kind of bad about the way our last conversation had turned out but I didn’t see that it could have gone any other way. Somebody had to lay the facts on the table and since he obviously wasn’t going to do it, it might as well be me. This wasn’t a couples get-away or a scenic retreat we were on here—we were running for our lives.
I turned over so I couldn’t see the faint green glow but then I had him at my back. Never turn your back on a vamp was Uncle Harry’s number one rule. I wondered again what he would think of what I was doing. Surely he would understand that I was just trying to survive. In the space of twenty-four hours my entire life as I knew it had been thrown into disarray. I just hoped that the safe house he’d left me would offer me help and guidance. I closed my eyes and remembered my beloved uncle’s words the one and only time he’d taken me there.
“If you’re ever in trouble up to your neck and you don’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to turn to, you come here, Kitten,” he’d said. He was the only one who ever called me that—the only one who could get away with it. “Look for the family Bible on the top shelf of the bookcase. You’ll find help there, and I don’t just mean the spiritual variety.”
I had never bothered to look in the Bible—a thick dusty book with stiff black leather covers—although I assumed it contained the name of someone who could help me in time of need. I had never needed to look because I thought my uncle would live forever. That I would never lose him—the one constant in my life, the one man who would never leave me.
I turned over again so I was facing Michael and shut my eyes firmly against the glow of his eyes. The Glock was under my pillow and it was time to stop being so damn morbid and get to sleep. We had a long day ahead of us tomorrow. I just hoped the dusty Bible would hold the key to unlocking the predicament I found myself in.
I did the Yoga breathing thing until I fell asleep. But then I had the dream.
We are in an unused coven—one of the older ones full of long hallways and flickering shadows. This is a routine sweep. We’re just here to make sure everything’s clear. There have been rumors of leeches from the Taglione family living here, trying to break off on their own. Can’t have that.
“You take the left fork and I’ll take the right, Kitten,” Uncle Harry says and I nod my head.
Uncle Harry always knows best. He’s been teaching me since I was twelve—lessons in weapons use and vampire physiology and the best ways to kill them. He took me on my first hunt at age sixteen—the age when a slayer comes into his or her own. The age when she leaves her birth family behind and accepts her destiny. In the four years since then, I have never once seen him falter. Never once has he fallen for any of their tricks. And he has taught me everything he knows.
So I turn for the left fork, unafraid of what I might find. Unafraid too, for Uncle Harry. He knows what he’s doing and so do I.
“Kitten…”
His voice pulls me back from the long corridor of shadows I am about to descend. I turn back to him.
“Yes?”
“Love you,” he says, and gives me a quick kiss on the forehead above my left eyebrow, just like always.
“You too,” I say, smiling up into his wintry blue eyes, so like my own. How can I know that the next time I see those eyes they will be wide with pain and horror? How can I know this is the last cherished kiss, the last sweet goodbye?
I don’t know, at least not in my dream. So I leave him, careless of the future even as my subconscious screams at me— Go Back! Grab his hand! Pull him out of the coven, into the light! Leave now before it’s too late!
My dreaming self does not hear, cannot heed the warning. I continue down the hallway, my crossbow ready to perforate any stray leeches that might be hiding, hoping to start a coven of their own. Vampires are like cockroaches—you have to stomp out every last one or they come back. They always come back.
I finish my sweep and head back to the main hall, looking for Uncle Harry. He’s been teaching me how to cook and tonight I wanted to show off my new skills. I’ll make him Spaghetti Bolognaise in the old Italian style, just the way he taught me.
Uncle Harry always says, “Why spend your time with an old guy like me, Kitten? Go out and have some fun. Find a nice boy your own age and paint the town red.” But I spend too much of my time painting with red and besides, where else can I find a man who understands me, who understands what my blood compels me to do? Uncle Harry is safe—he will never hurt me. Never leave me or send me away. That’s worth a thousand times more than a night out with some guy my own age who could never comprehend who I am and what I do.
I hear the sucking noises before I come into the room—the gurgling and choking too. I want to call his name but that is against the rules. “Never let them know you’re there until you’re pouring hot silver down their throats,” Uncle Harry always says. So I hold my tongue but the truth is I couldn’t shout if I wanted to. The truth is I know I’m already too late even before I round the corner and burst into the room.
I unload three glass tipped arrows into the vamps that are on him but that isn’t what makes them run. It is that
voice—that soft, horribly strong voice that permeates the air and drives them away from what remains of my uncle.
I can barely spare a glance for the red-robed figure in the corner, who drove the vampires away. I am down on my knees, cradling Uncle Harry’s head. My tears flow freely, dropping onto his face like rain. Later it will be a full two years before I can cry again but for now I can’t seem to stop.
Uncle Harry’s eyes are wide with terror. He tries to speak but his throat is ripped to ribbons. No sound can escape that gaping red hole. He seems to be looking up, over my shoulder. He gestures helplessly but I don’t understand. I want to save him—I would give him every drop of blood in my body if it would do any good. But even as I think it, the light dies from his eyes, leaving them cold and blank. He is gone. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
“No…No!” I howl my grief even though he taught me not to. Taught me not to make a sound when the enemy is near. Let them come, I am thinking. Let them come—I’ll kill them all. I’ll shed their blood as never before. Retribution paid out in crimson waves…
“My child.” The whispery voice behind me gives me pause, seems to stem the tide of my agony and grief. I turn in wonder to look up at the hooded and cloaked figure behind me. Memories surface—he drove away the vamps. He made them leave by the authority in his voice.
I look up at him, at the man with no face and the soft but commanding voice. Who is he? How can he control the undead without knives and guns, with only the power of his spoken word?
“Who…who are you?” I ask. I stand to face him but still his face is hidden. But his voice is kindly now—soothing.
“I was the mentor of your Uncle. A great man—one who should not have died this way.”
“Yes…” I am gulping back tears. I rub my blood smeared hands across my wet cheeks. It does not occur to me to question his claim though Uncle Harry never mentioned having a mentor. The man in crimson—his voice is so reasonable, so believable. When he speaks I feel implicitly that everything he says must be the absolute truth.
“He should be avenged. His death should be paid for in blood.” The whispery voice is stronger now, stirring a terrible fury inside me. Beside it my earlier anger is like a candle flame beside a raging bonfire.
“Yes,” I say again, stepping forward. “I want to kill them—all of them. They have to pay.”
“You shall have your vengeance, my child.” The man I will come to know as The Monsignor raises his arms in a gesture of terrible and infinite power. “They will fall before you as they never have before. You will be as the hand of God among them.”
“Yes,” I say for the third time. His words make so much sense and I know that he understands me. That even though Uncle Harry is gone, I won’t be alone. Then for the first and only time he draws me to him and enfolds me in that crimson cloak. I smell a sweet, slightly bitter scent, like ancient spices, dried to a fine powder, the dust of a city far distant in time and space. And I know I have come home.
“Yes, come home…Come home, my child…”
My sleeping self is startled—this is not the way the dream usually ends. This is not the way it is supposed to go. The Monsignor’s voice is quiet and persistent, invading my sleep, entwining with the dream’s old familiar images to make something new and frightening.
“Come home…” his voice calls me. I want to tell him no, want to tell him that I know he isn’t what he seems, even though I still don’t know what he is. But the dream persists—I cannot wake up.
“Come to me. Come.” A thin, frail hand that is nevertheless terribly strong is tilting my chin and I am looking up. For the first time I am looking up into the place where his face should be. Into the shadowy cowl.
I want to look away. Whatever is there isn’t meant to be seen—is too terrible to contemplate. I know suddenly that if I look him in the face and see what he truly is that I will go mad. Utterly and instantly mad. But the hand on my chin is too strong to fight. I stare into the abyss and see him staring back at me—for the first time I see his eyes.
Glowing bright red and slotted like the eyes of some beast out of a nightmare, the pupil opens wide to swallow me whole and I find myself falling. Falling into those burning depths and I know that I will never get out. Never, ever get out…
“Kate? Wake up—wake up, now.” A large hand was shaking me and a voice was calling my name. I usually wake up right away but this time it took me a while to pull out of the dream—or should I say nightmare. It was like swimming upwards towards the light through sludgy water. Tendrils of the dream gripped my mind like slick fingers made of seaweed and tried to pull me back down to the darkness.
When I opened my eyes it seemed that the dream hadn’t ended after all but had simply jumped to a higher level. A face was looking down into my own—a face with glowing eyes—a vampire! I was lying down, helpless, and there was a vampire leaning over me!
My heart started beating triple-time in my chest as I shoved away from him and reached under my pillow in one motion. The cool, comforting grip of the Glock was seated in my sweaty palm in a second. I pointed it at my attacker’s head.
“Get the fuck away from me before I blow a hole in you,” I said.
“Kate! Whoa—stop—it’s me. It’s Michael.” The voice was familiar but the dream lingered like cobwebs sticking to my brain. Still, it kept me from shooting although my finger was itching to pull the trigger.
“Get back,” I said again.
“Kate, please.” He reached out to the side of the bed and switched on the lamp. A dim glow lit the room, making his features more familiar and less threatening. “It’s just me—see? I think you just had a bad dream. A really bad dream.”
I took a deep trembling breath and then another, letting my finger inch off the trigger little by little. It was just Michael. I was all right. The Monsignor wasn’t in the room with me and my Uncle Harry wasn’t lying dead on the floor at my feet. Just a dream, just the same horrible dream with a new surprise ending. Or had it been a message? Did The Monsignor have the power to invade my dreams?
I put down the gun and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to ease the painful tension that had gathered behind my eyes. When I lowered my hand, it came away wet.
“Kate, honey…” There was a helpless tenderness in Michael’s deep voice. “Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Or cry if you want to, but come here while you do it.”
I don’t know why I went to him. I don’t know why he wanted me to. By all rights he should have been trying to get as far away as he could from the crazy lady sharing his bed and waving a gun in his face. But he didn’t. He held out his arms and I went to him and pressed my wet cheek against his broad bare chest and sobbed.
“All right, it’s all right,” he whispered, stroking my hair away from my flushed cheeks. His hands were gentle and soothing and his arms around me were warm and strong. Uncle Harry used to hug me like that. And my birth father too, before the mark of the Cosenza clan had appeared in my right inner thigh. Before he knew he would lose me so there was no point in getting too attached.
But everyone who’d ever hugged me like that, who’d ever held me, was gone. They’d all left me in the end. My father had sent me away, Uncle Harry had died and The Monsignor had betrayed and used me—I still didn’t know why.
Gone. All gone.
Fresh tears racked me. Dimly I realized that I was getting Michael’s chest very wet but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept stroking my hair and whispering soothing nothings into my ear. I felt safe in his arms—safe for the first time in years. But I knew it was a lie. No one can protect you from the monsters—not the ones inside you, anyway. And no one can promise to live forever and never leave or hurt you. Or if they do, it’s a promise that will always be broken.
I tried to push away from him, from the false security of his muscular arms, but he didn’t let me go. Instead he held me, gently but firmly against him.
“Let me go,” I said, but my words lacked conviction
.
“No,” he said softly. “You’re not ready to go yet.”
“How the hell do you know what I’m ready to do?” I asked, but there was no heat in my voice.
“I know,” he said simply.
I thought about struggling but I was tired— so damn tired. Suddenly it didn’t seem worth the fight.
If I hadn’t been weak and weary and vulnerable from the after effects of my nightmare, I wouldn’t have let him get away with it. I would have found a way to get my Glock and blown a hole in him just to teach him a lesson. Or so I told myself. Instead of going for the gun, I let myself relax against him.
Michael must have felt the tension leak out of me like air from a punctured balloon because he leaned back against the headboard of the bed and pulled me with him. For a while we just sat like that with me pressed against his side. His chest was warm and scratchy under my cheek and he smelled like leather and musk—comforting, masculine smells. I could hear his heart, beating slowly but firmly like a bass drum. Finally he spoke.
“You want to talk about it?” His voice was low and soothing—the same confidential tone the priest uses when you go for confession.
“No,” I said at once. And then I told him anyway.
Michael listened quietly, not interrupting while I told him about the dream. When I came to the part about The Monsignor standing over my uncle’s body and comforting me in my grief, he stirred restlessly.
“What?” I asked, interrupting my narrative.
“This guy—your, uh, old boss. He said he was your uncle’s mentor. But did your uncle ever mention him before?”
“No,” I said, feeling my cheeks begin to heat with shame. “And you know what? That never seemed strange to me until just now. I just accepted it—I took everything he told me at face value. I…I don’t know why I did that.”
“Maybe he cast some kind of…I don’t know…some kind of spell on you. The way he did with Melody, my neighbor’s kid.” He sounded thoughtful. “Maybe it’s just now wearing off.”