Michael climbed into the passenger side and I was about to slide in and start the engine when a pale, whispery voice stopped me.
“Katherine, my child,” it sighed. I felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water down my back. Slowly, almost against my will, I turned my head towards the sagging side door of the ruined church and saw the red-cloaked figure I’d though I knew so well.
“Get away from me,” I said, even though he made no move toward me.
“Come inside, my child. You must be cold,” The Monsignor whispered. I still couldn’t see his face but for the first time I thought I saw his eyes, far back in the folds of the red cowl, glinting at me. I felt an enormous compulsion to do as he commanded, an almost overwhelming need to obey. Slowly, stiffly, I started toward him even though it was the last thing in the world my conscious mind wanted to do. Was it just force of habit that made me come at his call… or was it something else?
“That’s right, my child,” he coaxed me in that dry, withered voice that was still so full of power. “Come to me and bring your friend. All will be forgiven.”
“Kate, what are you doing?” Michael’s voice gave me the strength to turn my head. He reached across the seats and grabbed at my hand, pulling me backwards. I looked at him confused.
“I…I don’t know,” I said.
“Come to me!” The Monsignor’s voice was stronger—louder and more insistent than I had ever heard it. He was beckoning me with one long fingered hand into the blackened husk of the church where everything was dark and silent and still. His cloak looked like a fresh blood clot in the crumbling black doorway. I felt the pull of his voice like never before, but Michael’s hand on mine gave me the will to resist.
“No!” I said, with more force than I’d intended. Just the sound of my own voice sounding so confident made me feel better.
“Come now,” The Monsignor insisted. “Or there will be consequences, my child. Consequences too terrible to consider. Remember who you work for. Remember that I am your master.”
“I don’t know who you really are,” I said. “But you’re not my master. And you can consider this my official resignation. Sorry I can’t give two weeks notice.” Holding Michael’s large warm hand like a lifeline, I pulled myself back into the car and jabbed the key into the ignition blindly.
I put the car in drive and peeled out of the alley, leaving The Monsignor and my former life behind, probably forever. I had been driving for almost ten minutes before I realized I was crying.
Chapter Eight
“Where are we going?” Michael’s deep voice dragged me up out of my own private misery. I made myself look around at the unfamiliar streets. I had been driving blindly, weaving in and out of cars and running red lights and stop signs as though if I drove fast enough, I could leave the pain behind.
“I don’t know,” I said, wiping at my eyes with the heel of my hand in quick, jerky motions. “We can’t go back to my place—it’s probably being watched.”
“We can stay at my place if you want.” He looked at me earnestly, concern clear on his strong features. His fangs had shrunk almost back to normal and if I hadn’t seen them extended and watched him heave a car-sized dumpster over his head, I never would have guessed he was a vamp. Hell, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I was crazy, after all. But crazy or not, I wasn’t quite ready to die yet.
“Michael,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “We can’t stay anywhere. The Monsignor wants…well, he doesn’t want me around any more. And you…well he wants you for some kind of prophesy thing. I don’t know what that’s about but he said something about your blood, so I’m guessing it’s not pleasant.”
“My blood?” He frowned. “Look, I thought you said that guy was your boss.”
“He is,” I said. “Was. Oh, shit.” I felt my eyes start leaking again and held back the tears grimly. I hate to cry, it’s so goddamn girly and weak.
“Hey.” Michael put a hand on my arm, his voice soft and filled with concern.
“Stop it.” I shook off his hand and kept my eyes on the road. If I gave into his compassion I’d be a basket case in no time. And besides, he was still potentially very dangerous. I didn’t know what was going on or why he wasn’t burned by the sun, but I had seen his fangs and his superhuman strength myself and that was enough to make me cautious.
“Sorry.” He held up his hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. “Look,” he said softly, “At least pull off the side of the road and let me treat your wound. You’re losing a lot of blood there.” He gestured at my shoulder where the blond vamp had ripped into me with his fangs. I had forgotten all about it but now it started a dull, throbbing ache I knew wouldn’t go away until I had disinfected it with holy water and rubbing alcohol.
We were driving through an industrial area and I pulled off into the parking lot of an abandoned factory, parking the Charger to one side, under some trees. The vast empty lot looked like a desert stretching away to nowhere as I got out and popped the trunk. Inside I found my emergency kit which included first aid supplies, extra stakes, my spare Glock, a passport, and a little bit of money.
There was also a credit card which was going to be useless since it was tied to The Monsignor. In fact, all my credit cards, hell, my entire life was tied to him. I had trusted him with everything and now I felt like the world’s biggest fool. I pushed the non-productive thought aside and grabbed the first aid supplies. Time enough for negative self talk later. Right now I had to think about how the hell to get us out of town and where to go once we got there.
I leaned against the side of the car and was about to pour some holy water on the wound when Michael took it away from me.
“Let me,” he said quietly.
“I’m used to self treating,” I said, taking it back. “Besides, this is holy water. It doesn’t agree with you—remember?”
He stood back, an unhappy look on his face while I boiled out the wound, wincing while the blessed liquid did its work. “Will you at least let me look at it?” he said at last, when the fizzing had stopped.
“No,” I said bluntly.
“I’m a doctor, you know.” He sounded angry and a little bit hurt. “I stitched you up last night and you didn’t have a problem with it.”
“That was then, this is now,” I told him. “You may be a doctor but you’re also a vampire—even if you can walk around in broad daylight. Sooner or later you’re going to want blood and I’d prefer it to be later. Okay?”
“I don’t want blood! Jesus!” He sounded really pissed now. Then he took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair. When he looked at me again his eyes were calm. “I am pretty thirsty, though. Do you have any water?”
“Look in the trunk.” I was finished with the holy water and had started on the rubbing alcohol. It burned like a son of a bitch and my suit was completely ruined. Also, now that the Florida sun was up, the vinyl was getting hot. Not like I was going to get a chance to go for a change of clothes though—there was no way I could go back to my house. Not now and probably not ever.
Michael went around to dig in the trunk while I finished making a crude bandage with some gauze and tape and plastered it onto my shoulder. Luckily it didn’t look deep enough to need stitches so I knew it would close quickly. The Cosenza clan blood that makes me a slayer and gives me immunity to vamp bites also makes me heal cleanly with few scars. It’s a good thing too, or my skin would look like a roadmap of all the kills I have to my credit.
Michael came back with a liter bottle of Evian. “You’ve got quite a kit back there,” he remarked, then popped the top off the bottle and drank thirstily. I watched the strong cords of his neck move as he swallowed. It didn’t prove anything—vamps can drink clear fluids as well as blood. It’s only solid foods that their bodies reject. He finished the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “So what’s next?” he asked.
“What’s next is we get out of town.” The pain had cleared my head and I felt stronger now
although I was horribly tired. “We need a place to regroup. A place to figure out why The…why he wants you so badly and why he wants me dead.” I swallowed hard. It was damn hard to say those words out loud. “There’s a safe house my uncle left me. He told me if I ever needed help I should go there. Nobody else but me knows about it. Not even my…The Monsignor.”
“Kate,” he protested, “I can’t just pick up and go. I mean, I’m in the middle of a medical program I worked damn hard to get into. If I don’t show up for my next shift I’ll be expelled.”
“And if you do show up you’ll be dead. Or taken hostage.” I packed up the first aid supplies and stowed them in my bag. I still didn’t exactly trust him but I had a gut feeling I was going to need him to get to the bottom of all this. And if I didn’t get to the bottom of it, I was going to be very dead very fast. “Look, Michael, I can’t explain everything to you. You’re a vampire now—you shouldn’t be able to walk in the sunlight and you should be thirsty for blood.”
He held up a hand. “Let’s not start that again, okay?”
I shrugged. “Fine. We’ll talk about it when it comes up.” And I was sure it would come up sooner or later. Why else did he have the fangs? “Anyway,” I continued, “I can’t explain everything but I can tell you that some very powerful people are after you. And the vampire that bit you in the ER?”
He nodded at me to continue.
“He was no ordinary vamp,” I said, taking the empty bottle from him and pitching it back in the trunk. “He was an Elder—one of the heads of the vamp families. They almost never go out in public because if they die, the entire line of vamps they fathered or mothered to darkness will die too.”
“So if that guy—I mean the one that bit me—if he died, I’d die too?” He frowned at me.
I nodded. “Yes, you would. Or I think you would. Just look at you.” I gestured to the way he was standing bare chested in the middle of the day, looking perfectly fine. More than fine, actually, but I wasn’t about to let my mind go there. “Maybe you wouldn’t die. I’ve been doing this since I was sixteen and I’ve never seen a vamp that could stand daylight. I’ve never seen one that didn’t lust for blood. I don’t know what you are—maybe a whole new breed. Maybe that’s why The Monsignor wants you. But I know if you stay around here, you’re asking for trouble.”
He sighed. “Okay. As a matter of fact, I do have a week off coming up. I was going to go visit my grandparents in Italy. Maybe I can call and say I had an emergency and had to go early.”
“Italy?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Moran is hardly an Italian name. Not to mention you look more like a Viking than a spaghetti bender.”
“I have some Irish in me too. But spaghetti bender?” He laughed. “That’s one I haven’t heard before.”
I shrugged defensively. “I can say that because I’m Italian—full blooded. With a name like Cosenza how could I be anything else?”
“I don’t know.” He turned to study me, arms crossed over his bare chest. “You have the black hair but your skin is so pale. And your eyes…” He reached out as though unconscious of what he was doing and cupped my cheek in his large warm hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with eyes quite that shade of blue before,” he murmured.
I felt a rush of fire at his gentle touch and made myself pull away. “All Slayers have this color eyes,” I told him. “It’s a genetic trait—like our immunity to vamp venom. But we really don’t have time to sit around trading family histories. We have to get out of town and get to the safe house. My uncle left a name of someone who can help me there. Once we get to the house—cabin, actually— we can regroup and figure out what to do. Problem is, I don’t think we can do it all in one day—it’s way the hell up in the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia.”
Michael smiled at me, apparently unconcerned by the way I pulled away from him. “Road trip. I’ve always wanted to visit the mountains. Florida is so flat.”
“Road trip on less than fifty dollars,” I said grimly. “That’s all I’ve got and all my credit cards are traceable back to my, uh, former employer.”
“We’ll be lucky to get gas for that much.” Michael frowned. “Look, can’t we just stop by my place for five minutes? I have travelers checks we can use—got them a week ago for my trip. As good as cash and a lot harder to trace than a credit card.”
I frowned. “I don’t like letting you pay for this.”
“Hey, don’t tell me you’re one of those modern women who always insists on going Dutch on a date.” He smiled at me again and I couldn’t help smiling back, just a little.
“Maybe I am,” I said, although I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out on a real date. Mostly I just picked a guy at random for hot sweaty anonymous sex in a motel somewhere. But it had been over a year since I had even done that.
“Well you’re out of luck, because I’m an old-fashioned guy.” He grinned at me. “If we’re going to flee cross country together, the least I can do is give you a little gas money.”
I sighed. “I guess. I just don’t like it. I’m used to being pretty independent.”
“I got that from you,” he said dryly. “But, Kate,” he ducked his head to look into my eyes, being careful not to touch me this time, “You saved my life more than once. You could have left me in the ER to die or be kidnapped by the vampire that bit me but you didn’t. You could have handed me over to your boss, but you didn’t. You could have left me to fight those other three vampires on my own but you didn’t.” He stepped closer and I could feel the heat radiating from his warm tan skin and smell the spicy masculine musk that seemed to be his natural scent. I felt my mouth go dry and my heart started to pound.
“You didn’t,” Michael murmured and reached out to brush my cheek with his fingertips, sending warm fire through my entire body. I stepped away again.
“I wouldn’t have done any of those things,” I said, looking him in the eye. “But don’t think I’m doing this out of some silly romantic attachment—some schoolgirl crush. We’re in this together because we need to find out why The Monsignor wants you alive and me dead. Until we find that out and eliminate the source of our problems neither one of us will ever be safe. And I don’t want to spend my life on the run.”
“Eliminate the source?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You mean kill them?”
I thought of putting a stake through The Monsignor’s black heart and nodded. “Exactly.”
Michael frowned. “You make it sound so cold—so logical.”
“Killing always is for me.” I opened the driver’s side door and motioned him to get in the car. “There’s no point in getting emotionally involved. It only leads to pain.”
“Sometimes you have to feel a little pain to know you’re still alive, Kate,” he said softly.
If you even are still alive, I thought, but didn’t say. His vamp status was still up in the air. And until I had a more definite idea about whether he was going to want bacon or blood for breakfast, I wasn’t going to let myself get too close.
Chapter Nine
I still didn’t like the idea of stopping by his place, but I liked the idea of trying to travel over a thousand miles on fifty dollars even less. The hot Florida sun was beating down and every self respecting vamp in the vicinity was going to be underground or at least hidden away from the sunlight. We still needed to watch out for thralls though—human servants that vamps sometimes took and kept in perpetual servitude using mind tricks.
If I hadn’t known better, I might have been tempted to think I had been a thrall for The Monsignor. But slayers weren’t susceptible to vampire mind tricks and besides, I still wasn’t sure if my former boss was even a vamp or not. After all, he had kept me supplied with holy water and I didn’t know too many vampires that had a steady source for that particular commodity. Not to mention that if he was a vampire, he had effectively ordered the execution of hundreds of his own kind by sending me out after them. Why would he do that if he was a vamp?
>
I pushed my doubts to the side and explained my worries to Michael. It wasn’t that I minded another fight, although I was dead-dog tired by that time. But I didn’t like to kill humans, even thralls, if I could help it. It wasn’t just that I disliked killing my own kind, either. It was the evidence they left behind. Kill a vamp and he’s ash—there isn’t even enough left for DNA analysis, if vamps even have DNA, that is. But kill a human and you have to dispose of the body. That’s a lot harder than most of the crime shows on TV make it out to be.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I have a foolproof way to find out if anyone’s in my house or even if anybody’s been anywhere near it.”
“You do?” I glanced at him, watching the trees whiz by outside his window as we drove. We were in Seminole Heights, a nice older neighborhood full of Victorian frame houses and little one-story bungalows all built back in the nineteen thirties and forties.
“I sure do. Pull over here—nineteen eleven West Cherokee.”
I stopped the Charger in front of the Victorian frame house with gingerbread trim. It was painted mint green with lavender edging—somebody had a lousy sense of decoration. I hoped it wasn’t Michael.
“Come on.” He started up the front walk, looking perfectly at home in the nice neighborhood the way I never did in mine. I followed him uneasily.
“Is this your house?” I asked as we got to the front door. “Who painted it?”
“I painted it but it’s not my house,” he said. “And no, I didn’t pick the colors. That was Mrs. Lebowitz.”
“Who’s Mrs. Lebowitz?” I asked as he rang the doorbell which played the first few notes of ‘Strangers in the Night.’
“My neighbor,” he said. Then the door opened and an elderly lady with snow-white hair and horn-rimmed glasses was standing there. She looked at us in surprise.