Killian came awake all at once with a more jolting shock than usual. He sat up before he was even fully conscious, the sounds of Charlie’s screams echoing through his mind. And more. The impact of her hatred. Hatred for him.
He hadn’t expected that. And he couldn’t have expected it to hurt this much. He sat for a moment, looking around the room where he’d awoken. A hidden section of the basement. Roxy, or someone she trusted, had erected a new wall a few feet in front of the original one. It didn’t look at all out of place, and short of measuring the house above and below, no one would notice. One section of the wall resembled an aging wooden shelf, complete with mason jars, antique milk bottles and coffee cans. That shelf was actually a door. Behind it was a space about four feet wide that ran the length of the house and the height of the basement. It held four cots, with just enough room so you could walk past them. A double bed took up the full width of the space at the far end. That was where Roland and Rhiannon had slept. Beneath each bunk, sealed plastic bags held fresh bedding and soft pillows. For a walled off section of basement, it wasn’t half bad.
“You do not look like a vampire fresh from the day sleep,” Rhiannon said. She was sitting up in her bed, gazing steadily at him. Roland lay still, his eyes wide open, but he wasn’t moving just yet.
“I kept hearing Charlie. I know that shouldn’t be possible, but with her...it is. I’ve heard her in my sleep before. Dreamed of her.”
“It’s been said that vampires do not dream. That the day sleep is impenetrable,” Rhiannon said. “But I know differently. For every rule, Killian, there are bound to be exceptions. Never take anything as absolute.”
“What did you hear of her?” Roland asked.
Killian lowered his head. “Screaming. She was screaming. We have to get her out of there.”
“This is freaking amazing!” Charlie shouted. She stood on the top of the 100 foot high, rock climbing wall that she and the other recruits had been ordered to climb. She’d scrambled up it like some kind of spider-girl. The others were coming up now, and climbing faster than any normal person could, but she had smoked them all. As she stood looking down from a dizzying height, her blood pumped madly through her veins. “I can’t believe it.”
“I told you it would be worth the discomfort, didn’t I?” LT, who’d been waiting for her at the top, could not seem to contain his own smile. “Didn’t I?”
She sent him a hateful glance. “I don’t remember. I was too busy screaming in agony.”
“But you’re not screaming now.”
“I told you to stop. You did it to me anyway. That’s not right, LT. I’m not going to let you get away with that, and I don’t care who you work for.” She supposed she should be respectful, do the “Yessir, Lieutenant Townsend sir” bit, but fuck that. She was strong enough to rip out his liver, and he knew it.
She had never felt like this before. She’d run five miles today in about 10 minutes. Only hours after the treatment. And she hadn’t even been out of breath. She could’ve done it again.
LT had a notebook with him, and he marked down the time it had taken her to make the treacherous ascent.
“How’d I do?” She didn’t need to ask, but she did anyway.
“Just under a minute. The fastest it’s ever been done was five thirty-four. You shattered the record.”
“I’ll shatter it on every course you’ve got,” she told him, and then she closed her eyes as some of the sadness she was trying to keep sealed inside her leaked out. “But you’d better not break your promise. I’m attending my mother’s funeral.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow night. Nine p.m. I’ve taken care of everything and believe me, Charlie, we spared no expense. We got the Methodist minister you requested, the flowers you said were her favorites, the musical selections, the readings. Everything will be just the way you said she would want it.”
She nodded. “That’s...thank you.”
“You’re a huge asset to the cause, Charlie. We want you to realize how much we appreciate having you as a part of the team.” He lowered his eyes, then raised them again to look into hers, and she got a little trill of alarm shooting up her spine, because he didn’t look like her commanding officer anymore. “And I want you to know how much I appreciate you, too. On a personal level.”
“I...” She didn’t know how to answer that. She had decided, somewhere between begging them to stop, and hearing him order the doc to crank it up to high gear, that she hated Lucas Townsend. She had got what she wanted. The cure, the strength. And bonus, it had worked on her like it had never worked on anyone before, maybe because she’d imbibed vampire blood before the treatment.
But she thought there might be something more. Something her grandmother had hinted at. After all, Charlie did have the same genes as the oldest living BD.
“It killed me to let you go through all that pain, Charlie, but I knew it would work. I knew it would make you stronger than any recruit yet. But more than that, I knew it would save your life.”
She looked away, out at the sky, the forest with all its tall trees completely blocking the camp from the view of anyone outside it. She didn’t need to exact vengeance on the Lieutenant, she reminded herself. She was already getting it. Using him, sticking around here for the information. This was the best place to find out what she needed to know. Where Killian was, and where he was keeping her grandmother. If he was truly the one who had her. The minute she found out, she was out of here.
But she couldn’t be too obvious about that.
“So I’m going to live past thirty-five now? You’re sure about that?” she asked.
“I’m sure. And once the scourge of vampirism has been wiped out of existence, you’ll have the rest of your life to do whatever you want with it.” He smiled a little. “What do you think you’d like to do?”
“Kill the bastard who murdered my mother. Find my grandmother, if she’s still alive, and get her home in one piece. That’s as far as I can think right now.”
“For now, that’s enough.” He looked past her, down at the recruits still climbing the wall, some of whom were nearing the top now. Taking her arms, he pulled her back a few steps, onto the platform beyond their line of sight, and then he bent his head and he kissed her.
And she let him.
Killian felt a hot blade searing straight through his heart, opened his eyes, and met Rhiannon’s. She had helped him calmly reconnect to Charlie’s mind for a few brief seconds. Long enough to know that he wanted more than ever to kill Lieutenant Lucas Townsend.
“She’ll be at her mother’s funeral,” he said. “Nine P.M. tomorrow night. But I don’t think we should wait.” He got up, turning to the false door and pushing it open, stepping into the basement and then moving through it and up the stairs to the first floor. Pandora lay at the base of the second floor staircase, watching the hallway above where the entry to the attic was. She had refused to bed down with her owner the night before, unable to let go of the notion of that giant white owl as a snack, he thought. Olive seemed happy as hell having the attic to herself and was taking full advantage of the open window to hunt.
Rhiannon stopped to stroke her cat and then opened the front door for her. “Go, Pandora. Hunt yourself down some breakfast. I’m in the mood to do the same.”
“We’re going to need something soon,” Roland said. He’d wandered to the kitchen and was holding the door of the refrigerator open. They’d moved their supply of blood from its travel cooler into the fridge. “We’re down to the last three bags.” He took out the bags, emptied their contents into tall glasses, and then set them in the microwave.
“At least it’s human,” Rhiannon said softly. “We’re strong again.”
“I said I don’t think we should wait,” Killian repeated. “Do you two have anything to say about that?”
“And we won’t,” Rhiannon said. “Are you still sensing that she’s in pain?”
“No,” Killian admitted. “But there’s exhilaration about her own s
trength, which is baffling to me. I connected with her long enough to hear part of a conversation she was having with that Lieutenant asshole. They gave her some kind of a drug. It made her stronger than ordinary humans. Its effects on her have been more powerful than they’ve been with any other recruit. And it cured the other effects of Belladonna.”
“Cured it?” Rhiannon asked, shooting an alarmed look at Roland.
“Yeah. She’s not going to die around thirty-five now. At least, not according to that bastard Townsend.”
“Oh,” Rhiannon said then. “Jealousy. Now I see why you’re so eager. Did Townsend attempt to seduce your beloved?”
“Yeah, and if he touches her again, I’ll kill him.”
“You can’t kill one of The Chosen, Killian,” Roland said. The microwave beeped, and he took the glasses out and handed them around. Then he looked at Rhiannon. “And before you judge Killian too harshly, my love, put yourself in his shoes. If some eager mortal female were to put her lips to mine–”
“If another woman kissed you, darling, I would tear her open from neck to groin and read the future in her entrails.” She downed her liquid breakfast in a single, long draught.
“As I suspected. That said, Killian, prepare yourself. Charlotte has been drugged. We do not have any way of knowing the effects of it. And beyond that, she is being systematically brainwashed by her captors.”
“Brainwashed?”
“They’ve cured her of a fatal condition and blamed you for her mother’s death and grandmother’s disappearance. What else would you call it?” he asked, sipping from his glass as they spoke.
Killian nodded slowly, drained his glass, and set it down. “I want to go after her now.”
“Then let’s go.” Roland finished his drink as well. “We need to get a sample of this drug they gave her, if we can, to send to Eric for analysis.”
“We need to wipe DPI from existence,” Rhiannon said, and there was a darkness in her voice that sent a chill down Killian’s spine. “I’m afraid the rogue Devlin was right about that all along.”
Charlie had to force herself not to gag and push LT away. She allowed his kiss but didn’t respond to it. She couldn’t bring herself to go that far.
“Do you know how to shield your mind, Charlie?” he’d asked her after a long and awkward silence.
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Imagine the hardest shell you can think of taking shape around you. It begins at the ground, forming a sphere in which you are the center. Can you see it?”
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine a sphere around her, going along with the “lesson” because it was better than pretending not to have minded his kiss. “Yes. I see it.”
“What color is it?”
“Steel underneath. But on the surface, blue, deep dark blue.” Like Killian’s eyes. “And streaks of red. A lot of red.”
“That’s very good. Now I want you to understand that this is your shield. Nothing can get through it, in or out, without your specific say so. Do you feel it’s strong enough?”
“Yes. I feel it.”
“Very good. You can open your eyes now.”
She opened them and had to blink, because for just an instant, the shell around her was real. Translucent, but there. And then gone, although not really. She still felt it, just no longer saw it.
“What does this shell protect me from?” she asked.
“Vampires are powerful telepaths. They can read the thoughts of most humans. This keeps them from reading yours.”
She frowned, wondering if Killian had been able to read her thoughts earlier, when she’d been wishing him dead, imagining his murder, and a wave of regret washed over her. Had she really meant any of it? Could she really kill him?
He’d murdered her mother. Of course she could kill him.
Don’t believe anything anyone tells you, including me, until you’ve seen irrefutable proof. Her grandmother’s words rang in her memory. But she had seen proof. She’d seen the photos of her mother–
No, she couldn’t think about that. And yet, she should, shouldn’t she? She should hold that image in her mind’s eye above all else and channel every bit of horror it created in her into vengeance. Into retaliation against Killian and his kind, so that no one ever had to lose a mother again.
“Did you hear me, Charlie?”
She shook out of her thoughts and refocused on LT. “No, I’m sorry, I drifted.”
“I said, there’s no question in my mind that the vampire who attacked you will try for you again at your mother’s funeral tomorrow night.”
“He will?” She processed that, then realized that he was right. Killian would come to that funeral, whether he’d killed her mother or not. Innocent or guilty, he would try to see her again, and he would know she would be there.
And why was she still thinking in terms of innocent or guilty? He did it. What, like it could be coincidence that she’d banged a vampire, and her mother got killed by one within the same twenty-four hours?
She focused on LT, and did the thought blocking visualization in her head, just in case. “What if he does? Do you have a plan?” Whatever it was, she thought, she didn’t care, just as long as he didn’t get in her way.
“Of course I have a plan. You don’t have to be afraid, Charlie. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“How are you going to prevent it?” she asked. Let him think she was afraid. She wasn’t. She was so strong now, she thought she could take on both him and Killian if need be.
“Come to the office after you’ve showered up. I’ll show you.”
She nodded, but thought she picked up a hint of something besides business on his mind when he said it. Didn’t matter. She could handle him.
“You need to rappel back down the rock face now.” He picked up a rope that was anchored to a chink in the stone, and helped her get it fastened to the harness she wore. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.” Standing on the lip of the rock she’d just ascended, a few feet from where the other recruits were still climbing, she leaned backward, balancing the balls of her feet on the brink. Then she pushed off, and let the rope slide through her gloved hands.
Chapter Thirteen