A Dark-Adapted Eye (21 page)

My mind went back to our shooting lessons and I tried to remember everything he’d taught me. “I think so.”

“What about me?” Aleskie asked. “Should I have something?”

“You’re staying here,” Les said.

“I should come with! I could help.”

“You’ll help by staying here. The less people we have tagging along, the better.”

“Besides,” Cris piped up, “
I’m
staying here and I’ll need some company. No way am I going to investigate some shady vampire hideout.”

“Right,” said Les. He looked at me. “I’d rather not have you along, but I don’t think I can talk you out of this, can I?”

“Nope.”

The ghost of a smile came and went on his lips. “Well, then, we’ll go together. But we’re waiting until morning.”

“But—”

“We’re not going tonight,” he said firmly. “Normally I would, but I have no idea what’s g
oing on there right now or how many vampires we might run into. It’ll be safer for us by day.”

“Ivory—”

“I’m not changing my mind, Ash.”

I sat back and nodded, trying to rationalize. He was right, of course. We would gain nothing by going tonight. We would have no advantage. And with the eclipse so close, who knew how vampires would be acting?

Like lunatics
, I thought.

Ivory had already been missing for days. Anything his captors would do to him had probably already been done.
I blinked back quick hot tears. The next few hours would likely make no difference.

“Okay,” I said. “You’re right. We’ll wait.”

It was an odd, uneasy night. I couldn’t sleep. Full of restless energy, I kept pacing, glancing compulsively at the clock on Les’s nightstand. The minutes ticked on but never amounted to anything.

“Stop,” Les said. “You need to rest. We both do.”

He pulled me to him. His touch calmed me. His hands and mouth gradually drew the energy from me and mine did the same for him. Before I knew it, the numbers on the clock had changed significantly and my eyelids were feeling heavy. We lay together, pressed skin to skin, entangled, because the bed was narrow and because each of us was secretly worried the other would try to leave before the arrival of dawn.

fifteen

umbra: the area of total darkness in the shadow caused by an eclipse

Dawn, daylight. Fresh sky, creeping heat tempered by a fleeting cool breeze. I squinted my puffy eyes against the bright, clear sunlight as I followed Les out to the truck. Seriously regretting my lack of sleep, I slouched down in the passenger seat and tried to pretend we weren’t embarking on a rescue mission where the odds were against us. But I couldn’t fool my nervous hands or jittering leg.

I looked at Ivory’s gun resting on the seat beside me. All I could think about was its weight, just the wrong side of manageable. My questionable aim. If we ran into even a handful of va
mpires, I might be too frightened to use the gun properly. Being without it would leave me virtually defenseless, but I couldn’t imagine hitting anything important in a high-stress situation. I could cause as much damage to myself as someone else.

“I’m not going to use the gun,” I said abruptly. “I’ve just decided.”

Les glanced at me. “Why not?”

“I’m not good enough. I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

He gave a slow nod. “Okay. That’s valid. But what if someone tries to attack you? A vampire, or even a human?”

“You could cover me?”

“Well, hopefully you won’t have to rely on me. But thanks for your faith.”

“You
will
cover me, won’t you?” I pressed.

A vaguely insulted look passed across his face. “Of course I will. Did you even need to ask?”

“No. I’d protect you too, if I had to.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I never wanted to believe in vampires,” I said after a moment’s silence. “I know now Ivory was telling me the truth about them, but right up until we watched them on TV I denied everything about them. I was . . . afraid to believe. If I didn’t believe, they wouldn’t be real.”

“That was the day Ivory and I told you we hunted vampires,” he said. “You had pink in your hair.”

“Yeah. You said it was nice.”

“It was.”

I smiled at him, but there was sadness behind it. We were on a rescue mission. We had been working toward this all week, but somehow it had become less and less important as the days wore on. Various occurrences along our quest for information had gotten in the way, clouding our intent. But now we were doing the thing we had set out to do from the start and it was quite possible we wouldn’t come back. I didn’t like to let myself think of it, but what if this was the last time Les and I were together? The last time we saw each other before we were killed?

I’d known better, of course, but it had seemed like we would have all the time in the world together. Now I realized how very little we’d had.

“I don’t want to be dramatic,” I began slowly, “but what if . . . I mean, we might not make it back, right?”

“It’s a possibility. It’s always been a possibility, every time Ivory and I ever went out to hunt.”

“Right. So—just in case—I wanted to tell you I love you. I know you know, but I had to say it again. You’ve always been there for me—for me and Ivory—and you don’t know how much that means. I wish I could have told you sooner. I wish we could have had . . .” I sighed regretfully. “More time.”

“Asha,” he said tenderly. He watched the road, but his voice sounded as intimate as if he’d been whispering in my ear. “I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to think I’d ever be happy with anyone other than you. I shouldn’t have let myself get in the way of us. I’m in love with you. That’s the one thing I really do know.”

We arrived at the Market much too soon after that. The other warehouses nearest to it appeared deserted, but I could hear the sounds of unseen work drifting toward us on the barest breeze: the beeping of trucks in reverse, the slamming of doors and the screeching grind of metal, loads lifted, workers shouting and laughing. None of them knew what we were doing. None of them cared.

“Run the plan by me again,” I said, stalling for time, as Les killed the engine.

“If Ivory’s in there, whoever’s keeping him is going to know we’re here for him. There’s no hiding that. So just stick by me and act casual. Fight if you need to fight. Run if things get out of hand, which they probably will.” He handed me the keys to the truck. “Worry about yourself, all right?”

I took them numbly and shoved them into the front pocket of my jeans.

“Sorry the plan isn’t a better one. Planning was always Ivory’s thing. And even then we just rushed in and started fighting most of the time.”

“It’s all right.”

At the last second, I took the gun and held it close to my leg. Side by side, we approached the door Les had used the night he’d driven us here. It was the only one.

Before we entered, he turned me to him and we touched our foreheads together for a m
oment. He closed his eyes and breathed in. “Asha.” It was all he said.

It was impossible to tell the time of day inside the warehouse. A single emergency light glowed above our heads, showing bits of trash strewn across the polished concrete floor. Neat squares of ceiling lights illuminated a large rolling door at the far end of the building. A set of metal stairs rose against the wall on our right. To our left, a row of rectangular concrete columns stretched the long, echoing length of the warehouse. I squinted into the shadowed area beyond them but couldn’t make out anything.

“The computers are back there. And the rooms for . . . studying,” Les said in a low voice. He nodded at the stairs. “Offices up there.”

I edged closer to him. “What do we do?”

Just then we heard the faint thump of footsteps heading our way. Les tensed, hand moving to the knife at his hip.

A figure formed out of the shadows and resolved into a familiar face.

“Mercer,” Les said, his tension easing only slightly. “What are you doing here?”

“Where’s my brother?” I demanded, my anger mounting at Mercer’s smug smile.

His eyes flicked to me. “What makes you think your brother’s here?”

“I got a tip.”

He shook his head, the slightest bit baffled at my response. “Why is it you always seem to know things you shouldn’t know? Who in the world have you been talking to?”

“The right people, apparently,” I said stiffly. Les placed a discreet hand on my back. “I know Ivory’s here. Where is he?”

Mercer stared at me for a moment, then shrugged indifferently. “Around.”

It was his eyes shifting to something behind us that alerted Les. He reacted before I did, s
imultaneously spinning around and reaching for his gun. I turned just in time to see a large hand knock the gun away. My eyes traveled up the arm to a meaty shoulder and came to rest on a bland, calm face. It was the big vampire from the night Ivory had been kidnapped. With a flash of horror I remembered how easily he had killed Lucinda and how emotionless he had looked while doing it.

Les reached for his knife, his eyes never leaving the vampire. But it wasn’t the big vamp that attacked. Another vampire, one I didn’t recognize, appeared from out of the shadows. He jumped at Les like an animal but Les was quick to react. The two of them fought, neither one gaining an advantage over the other, though the vampire blocked more blows than he landed. Les was very good—quick and precise and strong, seemingly tireless. I watched them, distressed at my inabi
lity to help.

He downed the vampire quickly, shoving the blade in his gut and removing it to cut his throat. I felt an enormous sense of relief until another vampire appeared in front of him.

“Asha, run.” Les, backing away from the vampire, issued the order succinctly.

I moved one foot uncertainly, not wanting to leave him.

“Stop,” Mercer said.

“
Run
, Asha!”

I ran. The door was only a few feet away. I had barely taken a step, however, when a gunshot echoed in the cavernous space. An abbreviated shriek escaped my lips. My hands slammed over my ears and I forced my legs to keep moving. Only fear kept me going. The door was there, right there, when something caught me about the waist. My body continued forward but the arms pulled me back, squeezing the breath out of me.

“Gotcha,” Mercer hissed.

Thrashing in his grasp did nothing, so I threw my head back and connected with his nose. With a grunt of pain he released me and I flew forward, the gun tumbling out of my hand. Stupid thing. I bit the side of my tongue as I stumbled and a metallic taste filled my mouth. Clenching my teeth against the pain, I grabbed the gun and fumbled with the safety, wishing I’d had the forethought to turn it off before entering the warehouse.

“Drop it,” Mercer said behind me, his voice deadly serious. Without looking, I knew he had his own gun pointed at me.

I put my gun on the floor and turned slowly around to face him. The sounds of Les fighting the new vampire continued to my left, but I didn’t dare look at them. My eyes were on Mercer and the gun—Les’s gun—he had aimed at my head. His eyes were narrow and his smile mean. There was blood smeared thickly beneath his nose.

“Come with me,” he said.

“What are you doing?” I asked in what I hoped was a reasonable tone. “You’re a human. You should be helping me, not vampires.”

“You don’t know anything about it, so just shut your mouth.”

“They’ve threatened you, haven’t they?”

Mercer smirked, but there was a flicker of something like fear in his eyes. His gaze twitched briefly to the vampire fighting Les. “No.”

“Please, Mercer,” I said. “I need your help. So do Les and Ivory. You worked with them. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

His expression turned unexpectedly savage and I flinched. “Look,” he snapped, “I’m surviving. Vampires control this city now. I want to live, and the best way I see to do that is to make myself useful to the people with the power. Got a problem with that?”

Yes, actually, I did, but I wasn’t about to stoke his anger by telling him so. I moved my eyes to Les. He’d wrestled the second vampire to the ground and, as I watched, drew his knife across the vamp’s throat. The vampire struggled for a moment, then fell still. Two dead at his feet. Les wiped his blade clean on the vampire’s shirt.

Suddenly I realized the big, blond vampire had disappeared. That probably wasn’t a good thing, but at least he was out of our way for the time being. Les would be too tired to fight him, I was sure, and his calmness, even more freakish than Rade’s, frightened me.

I turned back to Mercer, thinking it would be possible to get past him now, but he swung his gun away from me.

“I missed him the first time,” he said.

The sound of a shot ricocheted off the walls. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor, but the bullet hadn’t touched me. It had hit Les, though I couldn’t see where before he collapsed onto the floor, right next to the vampire he’d just killed.

“Les!” I started for him at a run, but Mercer grabbed my arm and jerked me back. His fingers biting into my bicep, pulling against my skin so hard it stung, he dragged me up the stairs to where Les had said there were offices.

We went right in the nearest door. The room held nothing but an industrial metal desk. He shoved me toward it, pulling a pair of handcuffs from the back pocket of his gray jeans, and chained me to the handle of one of the drawers. Immediately I tested the cuffs with desperate violence, but nothing gave. Red marks appeared on my left wrist.

“You could get out of here,” Mercer said, stepping back and crossing his arms over his chest. “If you give me what I want.”

I gave the cuffs another useless tug. The situation seemed impossible. My brother was . . . somewhere. Les was shot and I had no idea if he was dead or alive. I was on my own. I had to find my own way out, then find a way to get us all home.

Didn’t you notice the way he was looking at you?
Les had said.
Use your imagination.

Gross.

But if giving in to Mercer was the only way out of here . . .

I pictured Les on the floor downstairs, shot in the shoulder, or the stomach, or the leg, or the chest, and tried to figure out which wounds were survivable. Leaning against the edge of the cold desk, I felt the keys digging into my hip. I shifted, annoyed at the discomfort.

The keys.

They had been digging into my hip so long I had stopped paying attention to the sensation. But now I knew I had to get them. Feeble as they were, they were the only weapon I had. They wouldn’t unlock the handcuffs, of course, but surely I could make use of them somehow.

Mercer glanced at the door—somewhat nervously, I thought. “I can’t keep you here much longer. Actually, you’re supposed to be dead.”

I looked up at him, keeping my face neutral. “So what do I have to do to get out of here?”

“I think you know.”

Lowering my eyes, I nodded. “Uncuff me, then.”

The smug look on his face as he did so was almost too much to bear. I did my best to show appropriate reluctance and fear while also trying to convey a coerced willingness. Carefully I moved my right hand along my hip. He was too focused on what he thought he was about to get to notice my fingers slipping into the tight pocket.