Family Is Forever

  While the hungry vampire ate, Teren approached Gabriel. “We have a problem,” he stated, his face grim. Gabriel tilted his head in question and I watched Teren hand him a small aerosol can. “It’s the vaccine. He’s made it airborne.”

  Gabriel’s expression darkened as he examined the container. “That…is quite unfortunate for us.” He looked up at Teren. “He can protect numerous people at one time now. He could share it with others, vaccinate pockets of the populace up and down the countryside. And I have no idea if what he’s done will be passed on to the next generation or not. If he’s found a way to fuse it into the DNA…the entire human race could be protected within the next millennium.”

  That sounded like a long way off, but to a vampire, it was still something we had to worry about. And hiding from technology was bad enough. How much longer could we stay off the grid? It was something I didn’t want to think about.

  Teren swept his hand over the dozen or so containers that were on the burn pile. “This can’t be his entire stock. He wouldn’t have left it all behind.”

  Ben crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s just one more reason for us to find this guy. And fast.” He shifted his gaze to our new vampire compatriot. He’d finished his bucket of blood, and was running his finger around the rim, like he was trying to get every last drop. Since I knew how hungry he was, I didn’t blame him. I probably would have tried to lick the bucket clean. “You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, would you?”

  With a content sigh, the vampire set the bucket down on his lap. “God, I needed that…thank you.”

  Squatting beside him, I extended my hand, “My name is Hunter. What’s yours?”

  The vampire took my hand, his caved face intrigued. “Hunter? Kind of ironic.”

  I shook my head. “You have no idea.”

  The vampire let out a soft laugh; the dryness in his voice was mostly gone. “My name’s Malachi. I’ve been down here for…well, what year is it?” I exchanged a glance with Teren as Malachi shook his head. “Well, doesn’t much matter. It’s been a while at any rate.”

  The group of us formed a half-circle around Malachi. We were all hoping he had some direction for us, otherwise we had nowhere to go, but back home. And too much was at stake to just give up.

  Impatient for answers, Jake barked out, “Do you know where my son is?”

  Malachi looked up at him with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t know where they went. I only heard them talking about needing to leave.” He swallowed a rough lump and flicked a glance at the empty bucket before returning his eyes to Jake. “The kid, your son, he caused quite a commotion when he showed up. He said his dad was being held hostage by vampires, and he needed to have a vampire’s strength to break him out. He was really worried. Terrified, I’d say. He sounded like he’d do just about anything to help you.”

  Jake ran his hands through his hair. “Simon… What the hell was he thinking? He knew the experiment never worked. Why would he…? Did he do it? Did he let Henry drain him?”

  Malachi stared at Jake a moment, then shook his head. “No. Henry wouldn’t let him. Said there wasn’t enough time to do it here. He said the kid had probably led the entire vampire nest right to him, so they needed to get the hell out of town. The kid was none too happy about that.”

  Jake let out a long exhale and closed his eyes. “He’s okay.” His eyes snapped open and narrowed into pinpricks. “For now. Whenever they get to where they’re going, he’ll set up shop again and Simon will be his first volunteer.”

  Malachi shrugged. “I don’t know. Henry said he’d recently made a breakthrough. He said he knew why it wasn’t working before, and he knew how to fix it.”

  Gabriel suddenly grew very interested in the conversation. “How was he going to fix it? Did he say?”

  Malachi scrunched his brows as he remembered. “He said he needed a…naturally born vampire’s blood.” He looked confused after he said it, like he had no idea what that meant.

  I did. I locked eyes with Teren. “He knows about mixed vampires. He might know about your family.”

  Teren gave me a brief nod; his expression was dark. “Let’s hurry up here so we can get back to the ranch.”

  I loved the sound of that idea, for more than one reason. Teren had Julian help Malachi to his feet while Cleo and Ben went outside to question the guards. The rest of us went about destroying anything in the lab that could be used to hurt us. When the pile was ready, Halina found a can full of gas to pour on it. She cocked an eyebrow at Gabriel as she doused everything with the pungent liquid. “I do love a good arson.” Gabriel’s lips cracked into a smile and she blew him a kiss. At least the two of them had bonded through this whole mess.

  Before a match was struck, everyone was ushered to the relative safety of the junkyard. Teren stayed inside to ignite the pile, then blurred out to us a millisecond after we heard the whoosh of flames roaring to life. Cleo and Ben said the guards didn’t know where Jake’s grandfather had gone. All they had been told was to stay on the property and protect it from intruders. As we left them tied to the rusty car frames, I wondered if they were telling the truth. They were protected from compulsion, so, unless we wanted to torture it out of them, we had no choice but to take their word for it. And after seeing what had been done to Malachi, torturing them didn’t feel like a viable option.

  The vampires in the group grabbed those who couldn’t run as fast as we could, and together, we raced back to the cars; we smashed right through the gate this time. When we were all beside the vehicles again, multiple small explosions rang through the night as the flames found the compressed cans of the vaccine. Julian murmured that he hoped the dogs locked in the kennel next to the building were all right. Licking her lips, Halina told him they were excellent. Jake looked disgusted by her response, but I knew she was joking. I’d seen her opening the latch to the kennel before she’d blurred away. She might find dogs tasty, but she wasn’t cruel.

  We all watched the sky lighten with flames for a moment, then Jake said, “Let’s go. Every second we wait, is a second we’ve wasted.”

  Halina studied him a moment, then nodded. “We reconvene at the ranch. We need to make sure the nest is secure, and dawn will be here soon…”

  I glanced at the dark sky above us, and knew she was right. The ticking time bomb that kept us buried beneath the earth was a few hours from going off. For some of us, searching for Simon would have to wait.

  We all watched the sky lighten with flames for a moment, then we ducked into the awaiting cars and sped away. I couldn’t wait to get back to Nika, to make sure she was safe. The ache I’d been ignoring all evening deepened as we drove toward her. Under normal circumstances, the bond would have kicked in by now, and I’d be tearing the car apart to get to her. While it was nice to have control over my actions, I missed the intensity.

  To redirect my mind from missing Nika and worrying about my family, I focused on Malachi sitting beside me in the back seat. To make the trip easier on the still-starving vampire, Cleo had given up her spot in the car and was now riding in the other one with Teren, Ben, Jake, and Julian. The humans and the living vampire were too appealing to force Malachi to sit next to them for the long journey. Their heartbeats were as mouth-watering to a vampire as the sound of bacon sizzling was to a human. It wasn’t all that long ago that admitting that would have had me hunched in a corner, resisting the urge to vomit. But the truth was the truth. Denying it didn’t make it any less so.

  Putting my hand on Malachi’s shoulder, I told him, “As soon as we get to the ranch, we’ll get you more to eat…as much as you can handle.”

  His eyes fluttered like he was having difficulty keeping them open. “Thank you…thank you so much for saving me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it…” His eyes closed and he leaned his head against the window with a sigh. I let him rest; I couldn’t imagine how awful his imprisonment had been. Well, I suppose I could. I just didn’t want to.

 
When the main home at the ranch came into view, the knot in my stomach finally eased. Everything looked peaceful—no crazed, mad scientist knocking down the door trying to kidnap naturally born vampires. Family members poured out of the house as we pulled up beside Teren’s car. Jake was just getting out of Teren’s vehicle as Gabriel shut off our car. I was a little surprised Jake had willingly returned with us. A part of me had thought he would try to take off once he’d learned Simon wasn’t at the junkyard. I guess he’d figured he would have more luck finding his son if he stuck with us. Maybe he was finally coming to see that we weren’t all that bad. Sometimes the people you thought were evil, were actually the best people to know. And vice-versa. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

  Everyone was still awake, waiting to see the outcome of the raid. Nika rushed into my arms the second she spotted me. “I couldn’t feel you coming. I felt everyone else, but I couldn’t feel you. I hated it…”

  I kissed her hair as I squeezed her tight. “I know. I hate it too.” I didn’t add on that it was necessary. We both knew it, and we were accepting it. For now. Because as nice as feeling her presence was, it was nicer to be able to greet each other around family with a hug instead of ripping each other’s clothes off.

  After I separated from Nika, she hugged her father, and then Halina. Ben hugged Tracey while Julian greeted Trey and Arianna with an awkward wave. It was obvious that Julian was wishing to be more alone with his ex-girlfriend, so they could begin to reconnect. It was pointless though. After tonight, she’d be wiped and he’d be back at square one. Best just to leave it alone. Easier said than done though.

  Emma scanned the crowd as she walked up to her husband. “Where’s the boy? Where’s Simon?”

  Jake ran his fingers through his hair. “He wasn’t there. We were too late.”

  Emma raised her finger to the gaunt vampire we’d rescued. “Who’s this?”

  Teren wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders as he gestured to the newcomer. “This is Malachi. He was being held captive, used as an experiment. He’s been starved, drained…and who knows what else. He was the one who told us we were too late to save the boy. Simon and Henry had already gone.” Jake let out an annoyed grunt, and kicked one of the car tires in frustration. Ignoring him, Teren looked through the crowd for someone. “Gran, could you take him inside, get him something to eat?”

  Imogen rushed forward to help Malachi, while Jake turned to Teren. “We’re wasting time. We need to figure out where they went, before Simon does something stupid.”

  Teren raised his hand in the air. “I’m all ears. If you have any idea where they might have gone, I would love to hear it. Especially since Henry is now targeting mixed vampires.”

  Emma gasped at the news. “He knows about us?”

  Teren looked over at her with a sigh. “He knows about our kind, and, thanks to Simon, I’m sure he knows about us specifically. And he wants us…wants our blood. Henry seems to think that’s the key to making successful transfusions…to making living vampires.”

  Emma looked over at Gabriel. “Would that work?”

  Gabriel shook his head in answer to Emma’s question. “Honestly, I do not know. A mixed vampire turning a human in the traditional way rarely works, as you know…but a perfectly calibrated transfusion…well, that is altogether different. It still depends on the human host of course, but…it may be possible. I could not know for certain without running some tests.”

  Jake snapped, “We don’t have time for tests. My son could be hooked up to that damn machine at this very moment!”

  I was about to tell him that panicking wouldn’t get him anywhere and he needed to calm down, but Trey said something that got my attention. “What you got there, Julian? Body spray?”

  The second he said it, I knew exactly what Julian had. And like I was suddenly omnipotent, I also knew exactly what Trey was going to do with it. I was already blurring toward him when he snatched the cylinder from Julian, but I wasn’t fast enough. He released a large stream of the compulsion resistance vaccine into the air, then leaned in to smell it.

  As I rushed into the circle of Julian, Trey, Nika, and Arianna, the cloud of vaccine hovered in the air. My superior eyesight could see each individual droplet as it floated upon a sea of oxygen, and I could only watch in horror as the air current from my movement, caused the droplets to move. They settled on Arianna, then moved past her to the crowd of people now intently watching us. Ashley’s eyes widened as it moved past her. Tracey sneezed when some settled on her. I had no idea how much was needed to make a person impossible to trance, but I knew at least some of the people here were now “vampire proof”.

  Halina blurred over to Trey, snatched the cylinder from his hand, and then turned all her fury on her grandson. “Julian! What did you do?”

  With a sigh, Julian muttered, “Shit.”

  I WAS SCREWED. My family was going to kill me, if I didn’t die from shock first. Trey had released the vaccine, and odds were good he and Arianna were immune now. I hadn’t planned on it happening like this. I was going to explain Arianna’s options to her and then if she wanted to be immune, we were going to sit down with my parents. And while the chances of them saying yes to the vaccine were probably…slim…I’d still wanted to involve them in the decision. But now…now it was too late. Holy hell…my friends were immune.

  Once we’d gotten back to the ranch, I’d wanted nothing more than to have a private conversation with Arianna. To explain to her what I’d done and what it could mean for us. Before I could get her alone though, Nika had walked over to us. She’d eyed me up and down, then immediately said, “What’s going on?”

  Glancing around at all of the super-hearing vampires in our midst, I’d shaken my head, silently telling her, “Nothing, now be quiet.” Nika had crossed her arms over her chest and I’d almost groaned in irritation. How she’d even known something was up was frustrating. We’d been emotionally bonded for too long; even with the bond severed, she could read me like a book.

  While Arianna had looked between us confused, Nika had mouthed, “What is it?”

  Nika and I were good at lip reading; it was an essential part of maintaining secrets when your family had supernatural hearing. Making sure none of the adults were looking directly at me, I mouthed to her, “I want to give Arianna a choice.”

  Reaching into my pocket, I’d pulled out the cylinder and shown it to her. And that was when Trey had stepped in and taken the choice away from Arianna—away from all of us.

  “What you got there, Julian? Body spray?” Before I could stop him, he plucked the cylinder from my hand and released a puff of it into the air.

  I was so shocked I hadn’t been able to react. Hunter must have seen Trey reach for it—he was inside our circle in a flash—but he was too late; the cloud of vaccine had drifted along the wind, settling over vampires and humans alike.

  Halina was a split-second behind Hunter. She yanked the container from Trey, then turned to me with fire in her eyes. “Julian! What did you do?”

  As I cursed, the only thing I could think to answer her with was, I just got myself grounded for eternity. I didn’t say it though, this wasn’t the time to be a smartass. My heart started thudding as I wondered how many of the humans nearby were now immune; I didn’t know how potent the vaccine was. None of us did. That one squirt could have immunized everyone.

  “What did you do?” Halina repeated. I swear I could feel the heat in her eyes on my skin. It gave me goose bumps.

  “I…I didn’t mean… This wasn’t my plan, but he…”

  I pointed at Trey, and he immediately held up his hands. “I was just testing your nasty-ass body spray.” He stuck his tongue out and leaned into me. “Dude, if that was your plan to win Arianna over, I’d reconsider. That crap is foul.”

  Gabriel stepped up to Halina. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder and she moderately relaxed. Grabbing the cylinder from Halina, Gabriel examined it. “Young Master Trey here has re
leased the vaccine it would seem.” Glancing up at him, he murmured, “Interesting.” Turning to Halina, he murmured, “Love, would you mind running an experiment for me? Could you please compel Master Trey to do something?”

  Trey smiled and nudged Arianna in the side. “He called me Master.”

  Arianna and Halina rolled their eyes at the same time. “What would you like him to do?” Halina asked Gabriel.

  Gabriel gave her a small smile. “Whatever you see fit, love.”

  Halina’s grin grew tenfold and I quickly raised my hand to her. “Nothing that will hurt him.”

  Her smile dropped a little, but she nodded. “Trey…go into the house and scrub the kitchen floor with one of Julian’s toothbrushes.”

  “Hey!” I told her.

  She only gave me a blank expression. “What? That won’t hurt him.”

  Trey’s eyes were wide as he looked over at me. “Is she serious? Do I really have to do that?”

  Halina, Gabriel, and Hunter all exchanged looks. Trey shouldn’t have asked me that. He should have just done what she’d commanded. Nika tried a different approach. “Trey, you don’t remember how you got here. The last thing you recall is being at home with your family.” After she let that sink in a second, she said, “Tell me how you got here.”

  Trey looked confused, but not for the reason he should be confused. “Uh…do you want me to play along and tell you I don’t remember, or do you want me to tell you that I got a ride here with you guys…after that whole you’re-a-vampire-and-I’m-gonna-kill-you mess with Simon? Not sure how I’m supposed to answer here…”

  Nika sighed and looked over at the others. “I think he’s immune.”

  I locked eyes with my sister, and my heart started pounding against my ribcage in an unrelenting rhythm of hope. “Nick…test Arianna.” This was it…the moment of truth.

  My sister sighed again, and looked over at Arianna. “Arianna, I want you to passionately despise my brother. I want you to hate, Julian.”