Damn it—learning to be polite to a vamp was almost as hard for me as getting used to being one seemed to be for Michael. I decided we would both just have to muddle through somehow.
I looked around the cabin, trying not to imagine what Uncle Harry would say if he knew I had just invited a vampire across the threshold of the safe house he’d left me.
The inside of the cabin was dusty from disuse since no one had been here for four years since Uncle Harry had died. But it still looked much the same to me and I had to fight the urge to go from room to room touching his things, remembering him, his easy laugh, his gentle touch…
Instead I flipped on the lights—he’d had some kind of fund set up to pay the utilities so I never had to worry about it—and went straight to the book shelf. At the very top, just as I remembered it, was the big black family Bible. I reached for it, standing on tiptoes and then I felt Michael right behind me.
“Let me,” he murmured in my ear and got the thick, dusty tome down without even straining to do it.
“Show off,” I muttered, taking the book from him and laying it on the desk beside the shelf. He still stood directly behind me and I found it disconcerting to have him so close—close enough for me to feel his body heat like a line of fire along the groove of my spine. “Give me some room,” I said, elbowing him impatiently.
“Oof!” He pretended my elbow had knocked the wind out of him and backed off good naturedly. “Fine, I’ll go exploring.”
“Not much to explore,” I said absently, opening the stiff leather covers of the Bible carefully.
There wasn’t, either. The cabin had one main living area with a queen sized bed at one end and a fireplace at the other. In front of the fireplace was a long scruffy looking dark blue couch that was wonderfully comfortable if I remembered correctly. It was where I had slept the one time Uncle Harry had brought me up here when I was sixteen.
On the far wall, opposite the book shelf and desk, was a small door which led to a postage stamp sized bathroom. Beside it was an entryway that led down a single step to the long, narrow kitchen that ran the length of the cabin. That was pretty much it but I figured it should keep Michael busy long enough for me to see if my uncle had left me any secret messages in the family Bible.
I say I was looking for secret messages but actually, I didn’t expect anything of the kind. Uncle Harry had always been a straight forward kind of guy. He said what he meant and meant what he said—still a trait I valued in a man, or anyone for that matter.
But instead of a letter detailing exactly what I should do or who I should call if I found myself in trouble, I found a large, stiff piece of parchment. Unfolding it I saw a list of names written in thin, spidery script branching off of one another from a central name at the top. Some of the names had small, painstakingly drawn red crosses beside them.
“It’s a family tree.” Michael was behind me again, looking over my shoulder.
“What?” I gave him a look but he just smiled.
“A family tree. Genealogy was one of my father’s favorite hobbies—he was always trying to trace our family back to Ireland. My mom was mostly Italian but she didn’t care one way or another.” He looked more closely at the parchment. “That name at the top must be the most distant ancestor—and look, it’s a woman. Catarina Cosenza. Hey, maybe she’s your great, great, great, great grandmother or something. Looks like she married some guy named Vittore Morretti.”
I looked at the top of the family tree where he was pointing. Sure enough, Catarina’s name was joined with Vittore’s with a carefully drawn line and descending from that was another line that listed more names—mostly Italian—that continued down the page. But on the other side of Catarina’s name was another line drawn to the name of what was presumably another man—Niccolo Morretti. There was a single line under that pairing but no name.
“What’s this?” I said, pointing at the second pairing. “She had two husbands with the same last name?”
Michael shrugged. “Maybe she married brothers. Not at the same time,” he explained, seeing my look. “Maybe she married one and he died so she married the other. But look—it looks like the children she did have with Vittore kept her last name instead of their father’s. It’s Cosenza all the way down the line. Unusual.” He mused over the parchment for a moment before asking, “Is your name on there?”
I looked down to the very end of the crackling, brittle parchment. Sure enough I saw myself, Katherine Cosenza, written in tiny, neat script that could only be Uncle Harry’s. My name was listed beside the names of my older and younger brothers with one difference. There was a small red cross beside my name and when I looked for my uncle’s name, Harold Cosenza, there was a cross beside his as well.
“What do the red crosses mean?” Michael asked, as though reading my mind.
I scanned the parchment for a minute before the obvious answer came to me. “Slayers,” I said. “There’s only one per generation—see?” I pointed at the names.
He frowned. “ Really? Only one per generation?”
I nodded.
“But how do they—how do you keep up will all the vampires?”
“Vampires aren’t as easy to make as you might think,” I said. “Only one in every hundred people who gets bitten turns—the rest die.”
Michael’s face was suddenly pale. “So I should have been dead the moment that vamp in the ER bit me.”
I thought back to how I had felt when I saw him get bitten—it had been like watching a death sentence being carried out. Like seeing an execution and not being able to stop it. But I didn’t know if I felt that way anymore—at least, not about Michael. Maybe it was because he was different from other vamps but I was having a harder and harder time seeing him as one of the unholy undead.
“You got lucky,” I said, cutting my musings short. “Well, if you call being a vampire lucky.”
“Which you don’t,” he said dryly. “But even if only one in a hundred victims gets turned, I still don’t see how a single slayer can keep vampires from overrunning the planet.”
“It’s because we know who to kill,” I said. “I don’t waste my time with leaches—the newly turned, that is. I go straight for the Elders. You stake an Elder and his entire line dies—everyone he’s ever turned is ashed right along with him the minute the stake pierces his heart.”
“Seriously?” Michael looked worried. “So if something should happen to the, uh, guy who bit me, I would automatically—”
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” I cut him off. “The one who turned you was no ordinary leach. He was an Elder, not to mention a tough sonofabitch. I already tried to kill him right after he bit you, remember? Shoved a knife in his eye and skewered his brain like a shish kabob and he still kept coming.” I shook my head. “I think you’re safe.”
“Thanks for the cheerful thought, Kate.” He frowned. “I guess who you ought to be looking for is the first vampire—the one who started it all. If you killed him—”
“You mean if I could find him, or her,” I pointed out. “If I even knew who he or she was. That information has been lost—at least among the Cosenza clan, anyway.”
“Right but if you could find out then…”
“Killing the original vamp—the one who started it all—would take care of every other vamp on the planet,” I said, finishing his thought.
“Including me,” Michael said soberly.
“You are unique as vampires go but, well…probably, yeah.” I didn’t want to think about that so I shook my head. “Anyway, even if I could find the original I probably wouldn’t kill him. Or her.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Why not? To keep from killing me?”
“Nah.” I nudged him. “Because then I’d be out of a job.”
He gave me a wry smile and turned back to the family tree. “Thanks a lot. So the crosses show the vampire hunters, huh?”
I nodded. “Each one shows which child in the family received the mark
of the Cosenza clan and became a slayer.”
“Uh—the mark of the clan?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that like a tattoo or some kind of brand?”
“No,” I said. “It’s a birthmark that appears between the ages of six and twelve. I was seven the first time my father saw it when he was giving me a bath.”
I closed my eyes, remembering my father’s horror at the pale, cross shaped mark on the inside of my right thigh and the overwhelming fear that I had done something horribly wrong. I had always been his little princess before then—special and perfect in ways my rough and tumble brothers couldn’t be. Afterwards though, after he knew he would lose me to the Order, it was as though I didn’t exist. After all, why waste time on a child you can’t keep?
“Kate?” Michael put a hand on my shoulder and looked at me, concern in his deep green eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?” I tried to keep my voice steady even though the old memory still hurt.
“This.” He cupped my face gently and wiped my cheek with his thumb. It came away wet.
“Damn.” I put a hand to my face, wishing I could shut off the waterworks. Between last night and today, I had cried more than I had since the night of Uncle Harry’s death. I pulled away from him and swiped at my face angrily.
“So this mark just appears and you know you have to give up your life to go kill vampires?” Michael asked. “Isn’t that hard?”
“You have no idea,” I said. “And I didn’t give up my life—I dedicated it. It’s just…” I sighed and shook my head. “No, never mind.”
“Tell me.” Michael leaned back against the sturdy oak desk and folded his arms over his broad chest.
“Crap.” I sighed again. “When the mark appears, when a child is foreordained to become a giustiziere de morto—a Slayer of the Dead or Death Slayer, the parents know that the slayer from the previous generation will come on the child’s sixteenth birthday to take them away. Permanently. You never get to see your nuclear family again, or any family for that matter. Not until it’s your turn to train the next generation’s slayer.”
“What? But why?” Michael frowned.
“Safety,” I said. “You don’t want to make your family and loved ones targets for the vamps. They’ll kill whoever you’re close to if they can.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, looking pale.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Anyway, my Uncle Harry—the one who trained me—he was my father’s oldest brother and I think, from what Uncle Harry said that they were close. My father was only twelve when Uncle Harry had to leave—to go away and train. My father felt…I guess he felt betrayed. Abandoned by his older brother. But that’s the way our clan works, so he had to accept it.”
“So he resented your Uncle for taking you away from him?” Michael asked, frowning.
I shook my head. “Not exactly. See, I was always sort of his favorite when I was little because I was the only girl. I was the little princess and all that shit. I had two older brothers and one younger one. My father never expected me to be the one to turn up with the mark. I mean, there are female slayers but it’s kind of rare.”
“Mm-hmm.” He nodded for me to continue. It was surprising how hard I found it to do just that.
“So after…” I cleared my throat. “After the mark appeared, I wasn’t anymore. His favorite, I mean. In fact…I wouldn’t exactly say he ignored me. It was more like I had never been born in the first place. From then on I really didn’t have a father—until Uncle Harry started to come train me when I was twelve.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I used to pray for the day when I turned sixteen to come faster. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to kill vamps—I mean, I knew it was my destiny and all that. It was just that I wanted to get out of that house and away from my dad.”
“God, that’s terrible.” Michael looked genuinely troubled on my behalf. “So your father ignored you completely? And your mother let him get away with that?”
I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable. “She died having my youngest brother so it was just Dad.”
“Kate…” He stepped toward me and reached out to cup my face again. I evaded the touch.
“Michael,” I said warningly.
“Can I see it?” His question caught me completely off guard.
“See what?” I looked at him blankly.
“The mark—the mark of the Cosenza clan you keep talking about. I want to see it.”
“Oh, well…” Feeling kind of uncomfortable, I hiked up the long shirt and the sundress I was wearing underneath it (hey that damn stretchy elastic top was better than nothing since I didn’t have a bra with me) to show him the mark. “See?” I said, parting my legs so the pale, cross shaped mark on the inside of my right thigh was clearly visible. I was careful to keep my panties covered with the hem of the t-shirt but I still felt more than a little exposed.
To my surprise, Michael crouched on the dusty floor of the cabin to get a better look. “Interesting,” he murmured. “So it just appeared? Fully formed like that?”
“Pretty much.” I was more than a little uncomfortable now. The mark was about the length of my little finger and it was located high, and I do mean high, on the inside of my right thigh. As Michael leaned closer, I could feel his warm breath against my inner thighs and…other places.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, and reached up to stroke the mark gently with one long finger. His touch sent a warm electrical current racing through my entire body and I was reminded of the way I had felt the night before when he drank from me. The way his fangs had felt piercing my flesh, the warmth of his big hands as he cupped my breasts and rolled my nipples between his fingers… I forced myself to stop thinking about it but somehow I couldn’t close my legs as Michael continued to stroke the small, pale cross. “Beautiful,” he murmured again.
“I…I never thought of it that way,” I said, my voice breathless.
Michael looked up at me. “Kate,” he said softly. “I want to kiss you here—right on this spot—this mark. I want to taste you.”
His words sent helpless shivers over my skin and for a moment I actually considered it. Then I saw the glint of his fangs from under his upper lip and knew I was being stupid or crazy or both. No doubt kissing would lead to drinking and I had promised myself never to let his fangs pierce my skin again. Even if it didn’t lead to him taking blood from my thigh, it was sure to lead to something else I was better off not even thinking about.
“I think,” I said, moving away from him and dropping the skirt of my sundress back into position. “That would be a really bad idea.”
“Why?” He looked up at me and I saw the desire dancing in the depths of his gold flecked green eyes. Desire that mirrored my own. Crap.
“Because it just would,” I said. “Look, none of this is getting us any closer to an answer. We need to stop tiptoeing through the tulips of my dysfunctional childhood and try to figure out what The Monsignor wants. I thought I might find a clue in here because my uncle always told me if I was in trouble I should go to the cabin and look in the family Bible. And all I find is this.” I gestured at the brittle parchment with its elaborate family tree.
“Just because he didn’t leave you an actual letter…Here.” Michael stood fluidly and began flipping through the pages of the Bible.
“What are you looking for?” It was my turn to stand behind him and look over his shoulder.
“Notes.” He was flipping so rapidly I could barely catch anything and I wondered if this was another symptom of his vampirism or if he was just a speed reader.
“You’re wasting your time,” I told him, interested nonetheless. “Uncle Harry wasn’t a particularly religious person. I mean, he went to Mass regularly but he wasn’t the type to annotate his Bible.”
“Oh no?” He had started at the end of the Bible—Revelations—and flipped forward to the front. Now he was almost at the beginning in the book of Genesis. “Look at this,” he murmured.
“Someone underlined a passage at the beginning of chapter three.”
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” And the woman said unto the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” And the serpent said unto the woman, “Ye shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
I read the underlined passage over Michael’s shoulder or rather, around his arm since he was so damn tall. “What does it mean?”
“I don’t know, but look.” He opened the book wider and I saw that there was something written in Uncle Harry’s tiny, neat script so close to the inner margin of the book it was almost hidden.
“Let me see that.” I took the book from him and peered anxiously at the tiny writing. “It looks like a set of directions,” I said and read them aloud.
“Humpback Rock can be reached by following the Appalachian Trail south. Seven miles from Humpback Gap to the spur trail leading 800 feet to the rocks. Continue south another mile to the summit of Humpback Mountain with views of the ridges to the north. Follow the Trail for half a mile, passing along the top of a cliff with views to the south and east before descending one mile to the Blue Blaze Trail. Take the side path a third of a mile west and continue until you see the silver birch.
Beside the birch, see a large, flowering bush. The bush is hollow. Pass through it into the cave beyond. There you will find one who may help you but her words do not come without a price. She will demand payment but it will be nothing you can hold in your hand. Go only in the most extreme need and be careful.
Love you, Kitten,