“Starting the day with a kick, I see,” the vampire joked with her as he turned to the espresso machine.
“I’m normally more of a night person,” she answered. “I got up early to drive a friend to work, and have to hide from my roommate so she won’t drag me to Zumba.”
He chuckled. She could almost see the gears turning in his head. It was past dawn, the hour when decent vampires normally wanted to sleep, and she could tell he hadn’t had a chance to feed the night before. Here was a cute girl who no one expected home soon, who was willing to chat with strangers … and who, therefore, could probably be persuaded to go somewhere more private. He handed her the coffee, and the smile he turned on her was considerably warmer than the first one had been.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “My roommates have guests over at all sorts of crazy hours. Here’s your coffee, on the house. My shift’s pretty much—” He cut off, a moment after Adia sensed the aura of the bloodbond who had just walked up behind her. “Matt, it isn’t often you darken my door. Is something wrong?”
Adia turned, trying to make it look casual. She wasn’t sure whose bloodbond she was facing, but knew that the olive-skinned “young” man was decades older than he appeared. Bloodbonded humans, like vampires, didn’t age.
Matt lifted a hand to brush sandy brown hair back from his face, and the cuff of his long sleeve pulled back just enough for Adia to see the edge of a scar. Nikolas’s marks—a rose, a strand of ivy and Nikolas’s name. She was sure of it. Pure vanity made the vampire carve his symbols into the flesh of his victims. It also made them easy to identify.
Cold affected bloodbonds less than pure humans, so most of Nikolas’s bloodbonds wore their arms bare in any weather, no matter how much harassment it earned them from normal humans. Someone must have warned this one to cover up.
“Can I talk to you in private for a moment?”
The vampire looked from Adia to the bloodbond who had just walked in, probably torn between some sense of obligation and the prospect of a free meal. Adia debated interrupting to offer her name or phone number, but decided that would be too blatant.
She took the coffee and sought a quiet table in the back of the room, where she pulled out a science fiction novel she kept in her purse for when she needed an excuse. It would have been nice to eavesdrop on the two at the counter, but the vampire brought Matt into the back room, leaving a BE RIGHT BACK sign by the register. Adia supposed he didn’t care what customers he might miss.
Adia took the opportunity to scan the coffee shop over the pages of her book. This time of year, long sleeves weren’t exactly noteworthy, so there was no way to know if the other bonds in the room belonged to Nikolas. The real question was, why had someone called Heather from here? The phone was behind the counter, but customers might be allowed to use it. Anyone could have called; the phone itself wouldn’t give her anything more. Fortunately, every hunter knew that the friend of her enemy made a useful friend, and it looked like the local vampire might be a very good friend.
After about two minutes secluded in the back room with Matt, he returned to the café, nodded to a sleepy-looking human to man the counter and then slid into the seat across from Adia.
“What I was about to say was my shift is up,” he said. “I would ask if you’d like to get a cup of coffee, but I seem to have already provided that.” When she chuckled, he added, “My name’s Jerome.”
“Anna,” she replied. “Was that one of your friends looking for a place to stay?”
“More like a friend of a vague acquaintance, who only shows up when he needs a favor,” Jerome answered.
“Oh?” She wasn’t expecting him to tell the truth to the human he thought she was, but most people included nuggets of reality in their lies. She could sift for those.
Before Jerome could answer, someone else—a girl this time, with no hint of a bloodbond that Adia could make out—tapped him on the shoulder.
Jerome sighed. “I think it’s going to be one of those mornings,” he said as he glanced up at the girl trying to get his attention and gave her a halfhearted glare. Jerome jotted down a couple of words on a napkin—an address, Adia was almost certain—and passed it off. Adia watched out of the corner of her eye as the human read the address, presumably memorized it, and tucked the napkin into a not-quite-empty coffee cup before she tossed them both into the trash. The liquid would destroy the writing, which kept people like Adia from stealing the napkin to get the address.
“You’re popular,” Adia observed.
“I’m more like an information center,” he answered with a self-deprecating chuckle.
Adia glanced at the clock behind the counter and sighed dramatically. “I hate to caffeinate and run, but you seem pretty busy, and I should probably get home sometime.”
Walking away was a gamble. She was betting on the reaction the person he was pretending to be would have to the person she was pretending to be. She couldn’t take him on in a place this public, and she couldn’t wander into the back room with him and become dinner. That meant she needed to leave but give him a reason to keep in touch after she left so she didn’t lose her only contact.
“Anna.” He said her name as she started to turn away.
She felt a brief moment of triumph, and then her cell phone rang. A wave of dread passed through her before she even saw Zachary’s number on the screen.
“Sorry,” she said to Jerome before she answered the phone. “Hey, Bill.” To Jerome, she added, “My brother,” just loudly enough that Zachary would hear it. He would know she was with someone with sensitive enough hearing to eavesdrop on anything he said on the phone. Someone who didn’t know who or what she was.
Zachary’s voice was light and perfectly cheerful as he said, “Good, I caught you. I never know what kind of hours you keep.” He chuckled. “Mom wanted me to ask if you think you’re going to be able to make it for Thanksgiving this year. It looks like Liz is planning to come home, and it would be great to have the whole family.”
It was a struggle to keep herself composed in front of Jerome. Were his vampiric senses enough for him to hear the twist in her guts or feel the cold pit that developed in her stomach? Zachary was telling her that Sarah was there … or was possibly on her way.
“I’m not sure I can get off work in time to make it,” she said. She was nearly an hour away from home, and she didn’t have a vampire’s ability to instantly transport from place to place. Even if she drove as fast as she very well knew her car could handle, it was likely to be over before she got home. “How definite is Liz?”
“She’s going to hang out a little while, but I don’t know yet if she’ll actually be at dinner,” he answered.
Sarah had to be near enough that Zachary could sense her, but she hadn’t declared her intention. She could just be lurking, observing, looking at her once family or trying to see what kind of guard they had on Heather. She could be intending to turn herself over, and hadn’t yet found the courage, or she could have come to try to fight.
“I want to be there,” Adia said. “I’ll do my best.”
“I’ll let her know,” Zachary answered. “Take care of yourself. Get some sleep.”
“You too,” she answered.
They were all such liars.
“You don’t look happy at the idea of going home,” Jerome observed when Adia ended the call and tucked the phone into her pocket.
She hadn’t expected him not to notice her obvious reaction to the news, so she had an answer ready. “I have a difficult relationship with my family.”
“Don’t we all?” Jerome answered with a laugh. “If you end up wanting turkey without the complications, the Makeshift hosts Thanksgiving for anyone who wants to show up.” He went behind the counter for a few minutes, looked around and came back with a small flyer. “I just got these printed, and wasn’t planning to put them out until this weekend, but you’re welcome to one.”
Vampire Thanksgiving.
That was
sure to be a hoot.
“Thanks,” she said. Strangely, her smile felt genuine. Thanksgiving at home normally meant pizza. Now, if she was looking for an easy kill and some pumpkin pie, she would have somewhere to go. “You know, I should get going, but how about you give me your number, and I’ll give you a call sometime?” she asked. If Sarah was turning herself in, they probably wouldn’t need the lead, but it would be stupid to break the connection before determining how useful it might be.
Jerome obliged, giving her a different number than the one that went directly to the shop. It looked like a cell phone exchange, but there were so many these days that it was always hard to tell.
“Call anytime,” he said. “I tend to stay up late.”
“Me too.”
She managed to keep her heartbeat from ringing in her ears until she made it back to her car. While she had been inside, dawn had transformed into full day—one of those bitter mornings when the sky was so perfectly blue it was hard to believe that the wind could have such a bite to it. At least that meant there wouldn’t be any morning joggers or bikers to get in her way as she pushed as much speed into the car as it could handle. She trusted her reflexes to keep her from a collision. Worst-case scenario, she could sweet-talk any cop, add a push of power and make a possible ticket disappear. There were more important things at stake.
Absently, she wondered why she felt such a need to hurry. Did she really want to get there in time? Was it selfish to hope in some ways that Zachary would do what she hadn’t been able to and end all this before she even stepped through the door?
CHAPTER 9
SATURDAY, 7:31 A.M.
SARAH STOOD ACROSS the street from where she had once lived, well aware that the witches inside the house would sense her, but trying to get her thoughts and the scraping of the vampiric hunger under control enough to make a plan. The early-morning sun was a worse slap in the face than the winter wind. It illuminated a peaceful neighborhood, where some houses still boasted decorations not yet taken in from Halloween, and some were already prepared for Thanksgiving. A few brightly colored leaves still fluttered on the trees.
It was a pretty day to die.
For a little while, she had been too dazed to think past Nikolas’s, Kristopher’s and Kaleo’s vehement responses to her statement that she had to turn herself in. She had let them wrap her up in their insistence that she had a right to go on, but she didn’t. As a hunter she had accepted the possibility of her own death. She had never wanted to wake as a vampire. She didn’t want to die, but she had no right to endanger so many others with her continued existence when her time had come and gone.
Her arrogance had almost gotten Christine hurt—or worse. She had to fix this mess before it was too late and she lost the will to do what needed to be done, and there was only one sure way to do that. Dominique had invoked the Rights of Kin because her daughter had been transformed into a vampire. She would declare satisfaction once she knew that her daughter was … at rest.
The only hitch was Heather. The bloodbond was already in Vida custody, and they were unlikely to give her up just because the Rights of Kin were dropped. However, Sarah was the more valuable target, which meant an exchange that would ensure Heather’s safety once this was all over might be possible.
Unless the witches inside held to the law of never making deals with vampires.
Once she was certain she was reasonably well under control, she crossed the street. She was not surprised to see the front door open. Zachary stepped onto the front porch, and Sarah stopped on the sidewalk. They should have been somewhere in the old west, with tumbleweeds and a saloon to mosey into, not in peaceful suburbia, surrounded by rotting pumpkins and straw turkeys.
Zachary’s expression was as impossible to read as ever. He wore a slight smile that she had seen often enough when they had hunted together to know it was meaningless, and had his hands tucked into his back pockets. The position looked casual, but Sarah knew that it meant he had a knife sheathed at the small of his back. The only reason he hadn’t drawn it yet, she was sure, was the possibility of nosy neighbors peering out their windows. He would try to take the fight inside if he could.
His heartbeat was perfectly even. It wasn’t like the flawless Zachary to lose control in such a silly situation as preparing to murder his cousin.
“I’m not here to fight,” she said, lifting her voice enough that he would hear it, but hoping the words wouldn’t travel to the neighbors. “I’m here to …” Her voice trailed off. Would it kill him to look human once in a while? She shook her head and reached for her knife, which she had strapped to her wrist. It was warm to the touch these days, even uncomfortably hot.
Zachary tensed slightly, one arm shifting as he went for his own blade, but when he realized she was undoing the straps that held the sheath in place, he returned to his prepared but relaxed posture.
She set the knife, still securely sheathed, on the grass.
“I came to return this, and to turn myself in,” she said. The words were a little more tight, and a little louder, than she had intended, but she had never had Zachary’s perfect control.
At least she didn’t have to face Adia this way.
“All I want,” she said, taking a step away from where she had left the knife, “is for Heather to go free before I turn myself in. She’s human, just a bloodbond. Once you have me, you don’t need her.”
She could see somewhere in Zachary’s glacier blue eyes the exact moment that he decided she was trying to play him.
“Turn yourself in, and I’ll give you my word that she will be let free.”
Sarah’s laugh sounded a little like a snarl. “I grew up with you, Zachary! Trust me, damn you.”
“You did not grow up with me. Sarah grew up with me,” he replied. “Do we have a deal?”
“If I’m not Sarah to you, then I know for a fact that your word means nothing,” she said. “If I’m just a vampire, then you can swear on your mother’s grave and it’s all meaningless.”
Stalemate. There had to be a way to get past this.
Zachary had long been an enigma to her. She had hazy memories of his being around when she was young, but the one that stood out most in her mind was the resigned expression on his face as he watched Dominique bind her powers and set her broken fingers after her father’s death. He had apologized to her later, though she had never been sure why.
Had they been closer before then? She remembered that he had moved out the next day, and that his visits after then had always been purely business, either to work on a hunt or to help her and Adia train. He had never played “nice” when training. She had liked that as a kid. It meant that by the time she was strong enough to beat him, she never doubted that she had done it fairly.
She moved closer. He couldn’t hold her here as long as she stayed out of his reach. Zachary had the finest control over his raw magic and was able to do things with it that Sarah had never quite grasped, but for the past few years she had almost always been able to take him down in a plain old-fashioned physical fight. If he grabbed for her, she trusted herself to get out of his grip.
“Bring Heather to the door,” she said. “Then we can decide our next step.”
He nodded slowly and then glanced behind him. He didn’t need to speak.
Robert and Michael escorted Heather onto the porch. Christine’s brother looked pale and shaken. He stared at Sarah with first relief, then confusion and finally blatant horror. Michael’s face was flushed, and his anxiety was clear in all his features. He refused to look in Sarah’s direction, which was at least less of a stab in the gut than Zachary’s calm and even gaze. Heather’s expression was hard to read past the duct-tape gag. Her feet were free, but her hands were bound in some way behind her back.
Sarah took a few more steps forward. She trusted Robert and Michael more than she trusted Zachary, but Zachary was the one in charge.
“Robert, if you will walk Heather out to the street and untie her, I wi
ll go inside with Zachary and Michael.”
Robert looked from Zachary to Sarah as if begging someone to stop this madness.
I’m trying to, Sarah thought in response.
Michael shadowed Robert and Heather until they were even with Sarah on the front walk.
“I didn’t know,” Robert said to Sarah. His gaze held confusion, guilt, fear and indecision. She recognized it because it was the same tangle of emotions she had felt not long before. Whose side do I fight on?
“It’s okay,” she replied. The human couldn’t help her now, but he could be hurt if he tried. “Get Heather to safety. Don’t worry about me.”
She stepped back, giving them a clear path and keeping herself well away from any of the hunters. Once Robert was a fair distance away, she looked back at Zachary.
“Let’s do this inside, shall we?” she asked.
He nodded.
She heard Michael swallow thickly as he leaned down to retrieve her knife from the ground. As Zachary turned back toward the house, Michael whispered, “Sarah—”
She interrupted. “I can’t go on like this, Michael. I can’t stand to have innocent people in danger because of me.” She left him at her back as she ascended the front steps. “Dominique and Adianna aren’t here?”
“Why do you ask?” was Zachary’s response.
Maybe I just wanted to see if Dominique could look me in the eye and tell me I’m a monster, the way you can, Sarah thought.
Okay. She had done her duty. She had made sure Heather was safe. Robert was a good guy, in addition to his sister’s being one of Kaleo’s bloodbonds. He would make sure Heather was properly untied and knew which direction to go to get to safety.
The wards protecting the house from vampires seemed to scrape across her skin as she crossed the threshold.
“Hi, Sarah.”
She looked up at the unexpected greeting, which came from a hunter she only vaguely knew, as they all reached the living room. She had seen Jay at major events, when all the lines gathered, but she wasn’t certain they had been officially introduced.