“I guess you know what you’re describing,” Jessica growled, her anger rising above her common sense. “From your days in that sandy, dirty cell where you were chained like the dog you are.”
Fala was almost upon her. Jessica struck Fala’s cheekbone with her closed fist, which fazed the vampire for only a second before she caught Jessica’s wrist and tossed her into another tree. Jessica’s hands and arms hit the tree first, absorbing some of the blow, but then she felt her head and bad shoulder strike the unyielding wood, and black spots danced in front of her eyes. She suspected this was her second concussion in as many days.
“Damn you, human!” Fala spat. “You aren’t going to wake up. Your death will be your death. Do you understand? You are prey and always will be. Mortal … weak … prey.”
Jessica stood painfully trying to clear her vision. She had far too much pride to face Fala like the feeble prey-beast the vampire saw her as.
“I know your talents at inflicting pain, Fala,” she grumbled. “But even with them, you will never make me your prey.”
CHAPTER 28
RAGE FLICKERED across Fala’s face for a few seconds, until a lazy, dangerous smile grew to replace it.
Wise up, child, came Fala’s voice, suddenly smooth and eerily civil. Jessica felt a moment of panic as she heard the voice in her mind — as she felt the words overlaying her own thoughts. Then the fear faded, and there was only the sound of the cool, unarguable voice.
I’ve read your writing, Fala continued calmly, and Jessica had no choice but to listen. You know the difference between predator and prey. You were born human, and you will die human — prey and nothing more.
As Fala stepped forward, Jessica moved to meet her. Fala pulled Jessica’s hair back yet again to bare her throat, and Jessica relaxed, allowing the vampire to do so. Fala was simply a higher race, and there was no arguing with the fact. By nature she was a predator.
And Jessica was just her prey …
Prey?
That last thought didn’t sit well. Instead, it brought crashing down the house of cards Fala had so easily erected in Jessica’s mind.
Jessica shoved the vampire away with both arms, ignoring the screaming pain in her right shoulder as she did so.
“Get the hell out of my mind.” She spat the words, a hoarse command, and Fala’s expression went still, frozen in anger and disbelief. Jessica had slipped her mind control twice now.
“It seems to me that you were human once, Fala,” Jessica continued, ignoring the blood that trickled from several of her wounds, and the black spots that bounced along the edge of her vision. “But I suppose you don’t need to be reminded of your experiences as prey.”
Fala’s hand whipped forward and clamped over Jessica’s throat, pressing her into a tree and cutting off her oxygen. “Watch your words, human. Unless you want me to squeeze your vertebrae straight through your windpipe.”
Jessica couldn’t answer as she struggled to breathe. Fala let go, throwing her to the ground hard enough to send splinters of pain through the arm she caught herself with.
“You picked the wrong person to fight, Jessica,” Fala told her, pacing near her head. “Because I like pain — your pain — and I really like causing it.”
“That’s called sadism, and I think it’s some kind of psychological disorder,” Jessica grumbled, rolling onto her front so that she could use her left arm to push herself up.
Fala kicked her in the back of the head while she was still on her knees. “So are suicidal tendencies,” she countered.
Black and red spots fought for domination in Jessica’s mind as she felt herself being yanked to her feet by one of her injured arms. The world suddenly lost all focus, and she was dropped back to the ground.
“Pitiful,” she heard Fala grunt.
Slowly excruciatingly Jessica forced herself to her feet as Fala walked away to lounge on the riverbank. Leaning against a tree for support, Jessica touched the back of her head and found it sticky with her own blood.
As soon as she felt capable of walking, Jessica scanned the clearing for the knife that Fala had thrown earlier. She spotted it partially embedded in a tree trunk nearby and staggered to it. She bit her lip to hold back a yelp of pain as she wrapped her hands around the knife’s hilt and yanked it from the wood. Both her arms screamed at the effort.
She recognized the blade as Aubrey’s and was surprised that Fala had managed to steal it from him. Though simple, it wasn’t a knife one would mistake; the word Fenris was inscribed in the handle. Jessica knew the damage it could do to vampiric flesh, with all the poisonous magic burned deep into the silver of the blade by the vampire-slayer witch who had forged it. The knife felt almost alive in her hand, and she could feel its magic slither up her arm. Some of the pain dulled.
Never having handled a knife before as a weapon, she had no hope of fatally wounding Fala, but maybe she could hurt her enough that she would go away.
Jessica planted the knife loosely in the tree, a plan slowly forming in her mind.
“So, I see you’re walking again,” Fala sighed, appearing in front of her only seconds after Jessica had stepped away from the tree. “I must not have hit you hard enough.”
Jessica backed up toward the knife, protecting her right arm. The wounded-bird routine was old but effective. Fala wouldn’t consider the knife a threat because it would be impossible for Jessica to remove it one-handed, behind her back.
Fala stepped forward again, and Jessica felt behind her with her left arm as she backed up. Her hand was on the knife, but before she could do anything with it, Fala grabbed her again and dragged her forward.
Jessica’s vision spun at the sudden movement, and the next instant she felt the sting as Fala’s teeth pierced her throat once more.
This time, Fala made no effort to make it easy on her. The pain began instantly, not dulled by mind control or any hint of tenderness.
Though she had written about it many times, Jessica was not prepared. The pain in her head and her arms was nothing compared to the burning, suffocating sensation that now replaced those earlier annoyances. Despite her efforts not to, she heard her own voice shout out, a useless cry.
A wave of blackness spread across her vision, but she managed to fend it off as she yanked an arm free from Fala’s grip.
Fala shifted a bit, and Jessica felt as if her skin had just been flayed from her body; she moaned in agony as her knees gave out under her, but somehow, just barely, she was able to grope for the knife.
She pulled the knife forward in an arc, and though she had no strength and no sight with which to aim, the blade glanced off Fala’s side, slicing open the vampire’s arm.
To a human, the wound would surely have been fatal. If Fala had been weaker, she too might have died. As it was, Jessica was certain it hurt like Hell.
Fala shrieked in rage and pain and hit Jessica, hard, on the left side of her chest. Jessica heard something snap and was knocked backward into the tree, hitting the wound on her head again.
Fala disappeared, cradling her arm against her chest. That was all Jessica saw before she sank into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 29
FALA COULD SHIELD HER MIND too well for Aubrey to locate her, and neither Jager nor Moira would help him.
Only twenty minutes had passed since the tussle with Dominique, but he well knew the damage Fala could have done even that quickly. He had spent the time looking for Fala and berating himself for leaving Jessica alone, and little else. He hadn’t even bothered to replace the shirt Dominique’s knife had bloodied, but had simply tossed it in the trash somewhere.
Now Aubrey paced in Fala’s room, waiting for her to return, all the while envisioning the new forms of pain he could introduce her to if she had killed Jessica.
When Fala finally did enter the room, she looked quite a bit worse for wear. Her arm had been sliced open, and blood was still dripping from the slowly healing wound. She was trembling, though Aubrey couldn’t tell wheth
er the cause was pain, chill, or rage.
“Damn both of you to Hell and back!” she growled when she saw him. “Get out of my room or I’ll tear out your heart and feed it to Ahemait myself.”
Judging by her mood, she might very well try. Ahemait was the Egyptian devourer of the dead. When Fala brought up the mythology of her human background, she was best avoided.
Instead, Aubrey’s anger responded to hers.
He slammed her against the wall, his hand around her throat, and heard the crunch as her windpipe broke. The injury would heal quickly, but he could tell that, despite her high tolerance for it, Fala did not appreciate the pain.
She threw a bolt of her power at him and he stumbled back a step. Dodging quickly, he barely avoided his own knife when she threw it at him. The blade stuck in the wall.
“What did you do to her?” he demanded.
“Only what you should have done a week ago!” Fala snapped.
This time it was Fala’s turn to stumble as Aubrey lashed out, his anger making the blow even harder. “Where is she?” he said quietly, his voice cold.
Fala laughed. “You honestly expect me to tell you?”
Meeting her gaze, Aubrey paused before answering. He saw her expression change as she recognized the complete, smoldering rage in his eyes. “Yes.”
“She’s somewhere on the river,” Fala spat, wise enough to recognize that fighting him at this moment was a dangerous idea. “I hope the crows have gotten to her by now.”
Aubrey disappeared, bringing himself to the edge of New Mayhem, where the river passed by.
Once again he changed himself into a wolf, a creature that could move faster and more surely through the woods. Following the river, he covered a mile in only a few minutes. Finally, less than two miles from New Mayhem, in the thick of the forest, he caught Jessica’s scent and brought himself instantly to her side.
Jessica was pasty white, her breathing was wet and shallow, and her heart alternated between racing and threatening to stop.
She was alive, but not for long, and he knew no way to help her. Three thousand years of killing had taught him nothing about undoing this kind of damage.
After a moment of hesitation in which he swallowed his pride, he left Jessica’s side and brought himself to the home of Hasana and Caryn Smoke. He could sense Caryn’s magic, stronger than her mother’s, even outside the house.
Had he not killed all his gods long ago, Aubrey would have prayed that Caryn would be willing to help. Anxiously he brought himself to her side.
CHAPTER 30
CARYN HAD NEARLY FAINTED from fright when Aubrey first appeared in her room, but his rapid explanation had shoved all personal concerns out of the way, making room for the disciplined healer to come forth. She had been working now for nearly an hour.
She was from the oldest known line of healers on Earth, but even her abilities had limits.
She felt weak from fatigue. Her clothing was soaking wet from when she had accidentally fallen in the river, and her heart was beating twice as fast as normal. Her face was stained with worried tears as she chanted and held her left hand, palm down, over Jessica’s heart, channeling much-needed energy into the dying girl. Her other hand was constantly moving — soothing Jessica’s brow, holding her hand, or drawing power from the earth.
Jessica’s heart had been beating evenly for several minutes, but now it skipped once and Caryn gasped in pain, her chant stopping.
“I can’t do this.” Fresh tears rolled down her face.
“Should I get Hasana?” Aubrey suggested. “Maybe she —”
“She won’t,” Caryn interrupted, remembering her mother’s anger when Jessica had left the house the day before. “She hates your kind and calls Jessica a traitor to the human race. Monica would have helped; she could have done it. But I just can’t. I can’t save her, and I could kill myself trying.”
“Is there anyone else?” Aubrey asked, sounding frantic.
“Vida would kill her,” Caryn answered, “and Light’s dead.” She cast Aubrey a sharp glance, knowing that his kind had murdered Lila, the last in the Light line. “All the others are too weak. Whoever did this broke one of her ribs, and now there’s blood in one of her lungs; she’s going to start drowning in it soon. Besides that, she’s just about drained. It’s amazing I can even keep her heart beating at all. Plus, she’s got at least a dozen other injuries … I don’t know of anything in science or magic that can heal her.”
Caryn looked beseechingly at Aubrey, hoping he knew something she did not.
He knew nothing she wanted to hear. “I can kill — I can’t heal,” he sighed.
“I’ve been channeling my own … I don’t know what to call it … life into her, but if I keep doing it we’re both going to die. No witch short of an Arun could survive this, and they’re part vampire …”
Caryn trailed off, defeated.
“I could.”
She looked at Aubrey blankly for a moment after he spoke those words.
“Unless Fala decided to tear her heart out, her injuries are really rather insignificant to my kind,” he clarified.
Finally Caryn understood. She had channeled from other witches in the past. If she could take energy from a vampire and give it to Jessica … would that heal her?
It might.
“I could kill you accidentally,” she warned him.
“I’ve lived a long time.”
“This is very definitely going to get me disowned,” she muttered, hoping her mother would find some way to forgive her. “I need you on my right,” she told Aubrey.
After he had shifted position, Caryn placed her right hand just above Jessica’s heart, one of the three strongest energy centers. For healing, the heart center was best.
There were no words to accurately describe what she did next. Her own energy centers were open, forming a path from Aubrey to Jessica, and now as she tapped into Aubrey’s —
She gasped as the power flowed through her. That was all it could possibly be called. Not life, not chi as Hasana called it or simply energy as Monica had taught her, but pure, unrestricted power. No wonder his mind was so strong …
Caryn forced herself to control the power, which required all her years of practice, and then focused on channeling it into Jessica.
Jessica’s own aura was strong, and Caryn wasn’t surprised to note vampiric traces in it. She directed Aubrey’s power to the areas of Jessica’s injuries, where the girl’s aura was weakest.
First she focused on the crack in Jessica’s skull. It knitted itself together within seconds, and the blood that had pooled inside was reabsorbed into the veins as they repaired themselves.
The lung came next. The organ collapsed into itself and then regrew — small like a child’s at first, but quickly expanding to full size. The rib mended in moments.
The rest of Jessica’s body healed just as quickly, simply from the overflow of power. Caryn was grateful, since she was becoming sleepy. How could she be so exhausted with all this power running through her?
She was trying very hard not to think about what this process was going to do to her. She knew only one story that involved channeling the vampiric aura: Midnight Smoke, mother of Ardiente Arun, had drawn the vampiric aura into herself to save a human from becoming one of them. Since then, all Midnight’s ancestors had carried a vampiric taint. Ardiente and Midnight had split from the line they had been born in and become the first in the Arun line. Caryn was descended from their relations, who had continued the Smoke line.
Caryn was feeling light-headed. There was nothing more she could do for Jessica; if this wasn’t enough, then nothing would have worked. She quickly closed off Aubrey’s power centers, then her own, aware that if she passed out before doing so she would probably kill all three of them.
With her eyes closed, she focused on Jessica yet again, trying to ascertain what still needed to be done.
While most of her body had healed, Jessica was still all too human. Th
e newly healed areas needed the support of more blood than she had. Fala had taken too much.
“We should get her to a hospital, or she’s still going to die,” Caryn said, her voice uneven. “She needs blood.”
For a moment Aubrey looked up, and his black eyes held no warmth as they focused on Caryn and then fell to her throat. She could see the effort as he turned his head away.
He was no longer the perfect, drop-dead-gorgeous immortal he had been. He was paler than ever, and his eyes were unfocused. He looked as if he had been drained as surely as Jessica had. Of course, when it came to his kind, power and blood were often all but interchangeable.
Caryn lay down as another wave of fatigue washed over her, and watched silently as Aubrey tried to rouse Jessica.
CHAPTER 31
JESSICA COULD BARELY BREATHE past the pain in her chest. Every muscle in her body had cramped, and she was shivering with cold.
Jessica! She recognized Aubrey’s voice in her mind, though she had never heard him sound so distraught.
Slowly she dragged herself into the waking world.
No, not dead … I wouldn’t hurt so much if I was dead, she thought absently. It was difficult to form a coherent sentence.
Aubrey pulled her attention back to him. Not dead yet, he said quickly, bluntly. But you will be soon if we don’t do something. He paused, shaking her a bit to keep her attention from drifting away.
Careful. I’m not sure that arm is still fully attached, she answered, her wry humor returning to her.
I can bring you to a hospital, and they can give you blood. There’s probably still time, he told her. Or if you want it — I know you said before that you did — I can give you mine.
If she’d had the breath to do so, she would have laughed.
Did she want to be a vampire? To stay in New Mayhem, in the community that had been her life for years; to be with Aubrey, the only one she’d ever felt completely at ease with; to never be prey again?