Vampire's Shade 1 (Vampire's Shade Collection)

  Chapter 19

  When darkness fell, we were almost ready to head out. I’d gone home and suited up in my leathers and my guns.

  I still felt like hell, but I would ignore it. If we got through this, I would have the rest of my life to get through. If Connor died, I wouldn’t feel my aches and pains anyway.

  We had a plan. We had people to execute it. Most of all we had the drive to succeed. We had to succeed. I had to succeed.

  We weren’t really much of an army, no matter how much I was trying to convince myself that we were going to beat the odds. Two humans, one of whom had only really become aware – truly aware – of the supernatural world tonight. Phil knew how to fight, but what would he do when he came face to face with a vampire?

  Carl was used to it all, but he was a human. He didn’t have superhuman strength or blurring speed or premonitions or the ability to smell blood.

  Connor was the opposite. He had all that, but none of the skills that a vampire slayer needed. On top of that, the relationship between us was like cracked glass. Any moment I was sure it would shatter. So much had happened between us, and we were building our survival on a broken foundation.

  I was in between. The best of both worlds, everyone else had agreed, but I didn’t feel that way about it. I was the worst of both worlds. A half-breed who rejected the vampire in me and had never really completely made the human side of me work. Two worlds I had never really felt like I fit into.

  Yep, we were one hell of a team.

  Once the darkness of night was complete, we headed out. Connor was alert and awake, a vampire at his best. Carl and I were wired. Phil was cautious. We got into Phil’s car and drove towards town. I had left my bike at Connor’s house, and it was strange not using it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in a car.

  We headed to the Palace, because it was the most likely place the vamps would be. Connor knew that they were still active at night. I wondered how long he’d known that, and why he’d never mentioned it to anyone – like the police, for instance. When I asked him about it, he shrugged.

  “It’s not always easy to stop the things you know are wrong. I’ve been trying.”

  “But the police could have helped,” I said.

  “Helped lock me up,” was his retort, and I dropped the subject. The building was dark and quiet, a giant in the night.

  “How are we going to get in?” I asked. “Jennifer said I just had to mention her name to the doorman, but with Connor here…” I didn’t want to be rude and point out that he was a wanted man, but that was how it was.

  “Through the front door,” Connor said matter-of-factly, ignoring what I was pointing out.

  “We can’t just walk in,” I said.

  “What about the security cameras?” Carl asked, his hands in his pockets. He looked like we were going on a field trip, not to a fight to the death.

  “I called in a favor,” Connor said, and nodded in a direction past the building. When I looked that way, I saw a shadow move. My chest constricted, but then Carlos stepped into the dim light that reached us from the street.

  “You two know each other?” I asked.

  “We’ve done business before, from time to time,” Connor said, looking at Carlos, who shrugged. I should have guessed that that would be the case. If the masters used Carlos, and the masters used to work with Connor…

  The world seemed too small. There were too many things going on in the dark.

  “It’s all taken care of,” Carlos said to Connor. “But I don’t know how much time you’ll have before they notice it.”

  Phil shivered, and I knew it wasn’t because he was cold.

  “Well, come on,” Connor said, and he led the way. Somehow he’d taken control, although I knew if I said something, he would have followed me.

  It was nice to have someone else take charge for a change – but it was also strange to be in a group where I didn’t have to just watch my own back and that was it. There were more people around me now, people who seemed to care. They had my back.

  And I had theirs. So help me, if anything happened to them…

  I shook my head. I had to focus on the positive.

  We didn’t take the elevator. Instead, we took the stairs. Eighty floors, all the way to the top. The master vamps weren’t going to wait for us on the first floor, or even the tenth.

  “We could have taken the elevator at least up to floor fifty,” Carl heaved.

  I wondered why he wasn’t fit enough for this. Didn’t he train? He was the one who had enforced Ruben’s advice from the start, that I had to make sure to follow a strict training regime and never get out of shape. He must have known what I was thinking, because when I looked at him, he just shrugged.

  “Carlos cut the power,” Connor said. “The cameras have backup systems so this couldn’t happen. No elevators. If the masters are here, they don’t need lights anyway, so with a little luck they won’t know we’ve cut everything.”

  Most of what he said slid by me, but I focused on the word ‘if’. What if they weren’t here? What if it was all wrong?

  What if Connor was leading me into a trap?

  I shook the last question off. I couldn’t think like that. The only way we’d be able to do this now was if we trusted each other. Without that, we would fail. If I was right, well, then we’d all die. It was pretty simple.

  It took us a long time to get to the top, and when we finally got there, even I was huffing and puffing, gasping for air. It didn’t matter how fit you were; eighty floors was no joke. After I’d caught my breath, I realized that my exhaustion outweighed the pain. My head hurt, but I could handle it, and my ribs felt a bit better. I touched my eye gingerly, and felt I could open it more. Vampire healing at its best.

  Connor walked ahead because he could see better than the rest of us, and he knew his offices. Carl followed, Phil after him, and I brought up the rear. The floor was all dark, shiny tiles that reflected what little moonlight was coming in through the windows. We moved through double doors into a lobby with secretaries’ desks. They were unoccupied, of course.

  Connor kept moving, turning his head, listening. I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear anything. Then I breathed in deep. Someone was here. I could tell, could feel the lifeblood pumping through their veins. But I didn’t know who it was.

  Connor held up his hand and we all froze. Phil looked like he was going to attack the first shadow that moved.

  Connor stepped forward and opened the double doors in front of him. I was nervous. If the master vamps were in there, he would die.

  I hadn’t wanted him to come. I hadn’t wanted him to lead the team. I hadn’t wanted any of this.

  But I hadn’t had a choice.

  Connor poked his head in and looked around. I expected all hell to break loose, but nothing happened. A moment later Connor waved us on, and he stepped into the room.

  When I entered, I realized this was what must have been Connor’s office. The walls were covered with framed pictures of Connor as a human; Jennifer was in some of them. Other frames held diplomas, degrees, and awards he’d been given.

  His desk was heavy and dark, with an expensive computer on one side and papers scattered across the top. Connor walked to the desk and slid his hand along the edge. He missed working there. I could tell.

  I took a deep breath and picked up a faint smell, something that smelled like it had been burning at some point. With it I smelled anger and fear. And hopelessness.

  “Someone’s here,” I said.

  Connor nodded. “You’re right.”

  We walked around, following our noses, while the two humans looked on. Phil looked nervous. Carl looked bored.

  “In here,” Connor said when he got to a door that I thought might lead to a closet. I watched him nervously, my heartbeat pounding in my throat. Whoever was behind that door could either be an answer or an ending. I took a deep breath, and Connor pushed open the door
.

  Joel lay on the floor, tied up and gagged.

  “Joel,” I breathed, and knelt beside him.

  His eyes were closed and his pulse was faint, but it was there. The burning smell was strong now. His clothes were singed. His face was bruised, but the bruises weren’t new. When I lifted him up and held his head I felt dry blood caked in his hair. That could have been the source of the blood in the pit.

  “Joel,” I said again, wishing he would answer me.

  “It’s all right, Adele,” Connor said. “He’s going to be fine.”

  I believed him. I had to; I had to hold on to something.

  Joel was alive. I’d expected the worst for so long that I felt like I was going to fall over.

  “Your techie?” Carl asked.

  He and Phil were standing right behind me. I nodded, but Connor snapped at them.

  “Watch the office, dammit,” he said. “If anyone catches us now, we’re dead.”

  Phil whipped around and scanned the room, but Carl scowled. Connor lifted Joel and he moaned, eyes fluttering open.

  “Hey,” I said, running my hand down Joel’s cheek. His eyes looked like they weren’t registering anything, like he was staring into a void, but then his gaze slid to me.

  “Adele?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I said. My voice was thick with emotion. I scolded myself, commanding myself not to cry. “We’re going to get you to a hospital.”

  Connor managed to get Joel out of the closet and laid him down on the floor.

  “Can we get him to a hospital?” I asked him.

  “We have to,” he agreed. “And then where are we headed?”

  I stood up and looked around the office, feeling forlorn. There was no one else here. Joel had been here alone. It made me feel like I’d failed. Again.

  “She’s not here,” I said, feeling a void open in my chest as I said it. Where was I supposed to look for my sister now?

  “We’ll just have to move on, then,” Connor said.

  “Where?”

  We all fell quiet. None of us knew the answer to that.

  “I don’t know,” Connor said softly.

  A little while later, I found myself in a circle in front of the hospital. The bright lights streaming from the emergency room lit up the pavement around me as bright as daylight. It made my black leather clothes look blacker. Connor looked ghostly white in the light, like a marble statue.

  I closed my eyes and reached out for my sister. It took me a while to calm myself enough. When my heart rate had slowed down and I could almost track the molecules in my body because I was concentrating that hard, I picked up the faint hum in my veins that didn’t come from my blood, but Aspen’s.

  It was fading.

  I opened my eyes. “I can’t find her,” I moaned.

  “What do you mean?” Carl asked.

  Connor understood. He looked at me, his eyes asking me questions he didn’t speak aloud.

  “They keep shutting me out. I can’t find her,” I said. “I know she’s alive, but I don’t know where she is. It’s like she’s behind some kind of thick metal wall.”

  “She might very well be,” Connor said.

  Phil and Carl both looked like they didn’t know what I was talking about, like they knew they were missing something.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “If they have her, they’d want to stop her from being able to dematerialize.”

  “She can’t do that,” I said. “She only has half the genes, like me. Or wouldn’t they know that? She looks more vampire than I do.”

  Connor shook his head. “I doubt they don’t know. But they might keep her where they’ve kept other vampires before. Vampires who can dematerialize.”

  What he was saying took a few seconds to sink in. They might be keeping her in the same place where they’d kept the other vampires. The one they’d sold. My hands flew up to my mouth almost involuntarily.

  “How are we going to find her?” I groaned.

  I was getting frantic. After all this, what if we never found her? What if she died before I got to her? What if…?

  “Don’t do this,” Connor said, pulling my hands away from my face. When my fingers came away from my face, they were trembling.

  “Don’t do it,” he said again. His voice was soft, gentle. “They’re doing this because they’re vampires. Because they can. You can do it, too. Just find her. Focus, and find her.”

  “But I’m only half, Connor. I’m not—”

  “You can do it,” he said. “You can. I believe in you.”