A Dark-Adapted Eye (8 page)

“I don’t normally do this,” I said demurely.

“Don’t worry, Asha. I do.”

Killer
, I thought, and forced a charmed laugh. “Let’s go outside, then. My car’s parked not far from here.”

“Excellent.”

Abandoning my drink, I led the way out of the club, feeling as if she were going to pounce at any moment. I took deep breaths and tried to tell myself this would be over soon. It had taken all my acting skills to charm Lucinda and I hoped my efforts would pay off. If she noticed my nervousness at all, I hoped she’d think I was just shy.

All I had to do was get her to the alley, I reminded myself silently. The boys would take care of the rest.

My flats tapped the sidewalk and Lucinda’s high heels clicked elegantly. A foot of space hovered between us. I could see the alley up ahead and marveled at how simple this was turning out to be. I had found Lucinda and lured her out of the club, and we were just coming to the alley. Our footsteps slowed and my heart beat faster.

Suddenly a figure broke free of the shadows and attacked the vampire from behind. Lucinda’s mouth opened in an angry snarl and her widened gray eyes landed on me. I backed away in real shock, coming up against a car parked at the curb. I knew I should have been getting out of there, but I stared in morbid fascination.

Ivory held Lucinda’s neck with his forearm. With his other hand he struggled to keep both her arms pinned behind her back, but she thrashed mightily against him. Les was before her, the silver blade of his knife headed for her throat. He made contact and she yowled, bucking against Ivory. She kicked out both her legs and used her feet to push against Les’s chest, propelling her and Ivory into the alley shadows. Les dashed after them.

“Asha, we need to get out of here,” someone said urgently in my left ear.

I jumped at Aleskie’s voice but proceeded to ignore her, my eyes searching the alley’s gloom. There were four figures, I realized. Three I could identify as Ivory, Les, and Lucinda.

Who was the fourth?

The unknown figure, shorter than the rest, put himself between Les and the other two. It appeared he was trying to get Lucinda away from the guys, but I wasn’t sure who he was trying to help. To my eyes it looked like he was only getting in everyone’s way.

Suddenly Lucinda broke away from the three of them and started running at me. Her hand closed around my throat and she pinned me against the car. “You set me up,” she growled. Her throat leaked thin streams of blood where Les had sliced her and I wondered if the wound was deep enough to be fatal.

“You’re—a—murderer,” I choked out. Aleskie was trying to fight her off, but her efforts did nothing.

Then Ivory’s face appeared over Lucinda’s shoulder and he grabbed her. She flung me away and I tripped over Aleskie, losing a shoe in my effort not to fall to the ground. Stunned, I watched as Lucinda wrestled my injured brother to the ground. His left arm was streaked with drying blood and the side of his head was shiny with a still-bleeding wound.

“You’ll do, I suppose,” I heard her say to him.

She yanked open the passenger door of the car and shoved my brother inside, though he was at least twice her size. His wound was worse than hers; she had her strength, but his was fading.

After shutting Ivory in she produced a pair of keys from some unseen pocket and tossed them in the air, eyeing me with smirk, daring me to stop her. She caught them and strolled leisurely around to the driver side. But she looked drowsy now, as if her injury was finally catching up with her.

I snapped out of my daze and into action. “No!” I cried, lunging forward.

Then out of nowhere a man stepped between me and the car, a big pale man, so broad-shouldered he blocked my view of Lucinda. I heard her yell out in anger and a moment later she came to stand docilely at the big man’s side. Another man was with her, this one slim and slightly shorter than me. The fourth figure. I stepped back and gazed at them. I had never seen either of the men before, but I knew they were vampires.

The big one, his neat blond haircut slightly overgrown, was immaculate in his dark suit. He looked down at Lucinda, a dim flare of anger in his eyes.

“What is going on here?”

“She was trying to kill me.” Despite her narrow-eyed accusation, there was something oddly deferential in Lucinda’s tone. She, a vicious killer, was afraid of this vampire, I realized. Who was he?

“Ah. Why was she trying to do that?” He spoke in a soft, even tone, but his voice was deep and rumbling, a sound I could have wrapped myself up in. Unsettled, I took another step away from the trio. Aleskie hovered at my elbow.

Lucinda leaned weakly against the car and didn’t answer. The big vampire turned to me e
xpectantly and somehow I found my voice. “She has my brother in the car against his will. I want him back.”

“What about you?” The big vampire’s dark eyes, patient and curious, met mine. His hands were clasped neatly in front of him.

“Uh . . . she wanted to kill me, too. My brother was protecting me.”

“I know what she does,” the big vampire said with sudden coldness. He turned back to Lucinda. “I know who you are. You’ve been causing a lot of trouble in Las Secas. I don’t like it. I thought I made it clear to everyone humans were not to be killed.”

“I’m sorry, I was just—”

“You will die anyway if that bleeding doesn’t stop. I’ll be merciful.”

He reached up and placed his enormous hands on either side of her head. With a twist, a movement that looked deceptively gentle, she was dead. The vampire released her and she crumpled bonelessly to the ground.

The vampire’s hands resumed their clasp and he looked at me. Though I could see nothing but calm patience in his eyes, my stomach turned over with fear.

“The boy?” he said to the shorter vampire.

Obediently, the other vampire went to the car and opened Ivory’s door. My brother was groggy but able to stand once the vampire propped him up against the car. He blinked several times at all of us standing before him and his eyes grew cold when he realized the two men were vampires.

“What do you do?” the big one asked my brother.

“I kill creeps like you,” Ivory returned venomously. His head lolled a little and the wound behind his ear gleamed. He was hurt worse than I thought. I knew head wounds bled a lot, but he could barely keep himself conscious.

The big vampire looked intrigued. “Oh?”

“
Ivory
,” I said in a warning tone, but both he and the vampires ignored me.

“Someone has to. Someone has to keep you from carrying out your plans to take over the world. I know what you’re trying to do. I
know
. Soon everyone will.”

“What do we care if anyone knows? You’re only human.”

Ivory only smiled drunkenly and turned to me. “Asha,” he said seriously, his words slurring slightly, “don’t go outside during the lunar eclipse. If you ever decided to listen to anything I said—”

The vampire shook him once, roughly, to get him to stop talking. He turned to his shorter companion and said, “Tasker, I think we should take this one back with us.”

At once the short vampire hustled Ivory back into the car. My brother struggled, but he’d lost too much strength. I watched helplessly as Tasker retrieved the keys from beside Lucinda’s body and situated himself behind the wheel. The big one folded himself into the back. Aleskie and I might have been invisible for all the attention they paid us at that point.

“Wait,” I cried desperately. I grabbed the passenger side door handle and yanked frantically, only to find it locked. I had no choice but to let go as the car sped away. Pitiful sobs escaped my lips. My brother was gone.

Who the hell were those guys? What, exactly, had just happened?

The street was quiet now, almost unnaturally so. Ignoring Aleskie’s worried gaze, I limped along the sidewalk and found my shoe. I didn’t look at Lucinda’s lifeless body, but I could see her splayed limbs in my peripheral vision.

“Les,” I said softly. “
Les
.”

Growing more panicked with each step, I headed into the dark alley and found Les lying u
nconscious on the ground. I said his name loudly and shook his shoulder, frantic. I searched for any obvious injuries, but thankfully I saw none.

He sat up suddenly, groaning, and touched the back of his head. I sagged with sudden teary relief. He was
alive
.

“Fucking shit,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “I don’t know what the hell just happened. She found a—a brick or something and threw it at Ivory’s head. It got him right in the temple. We’d have been all right anyway, but this other vamp came out of nowhere and messed everything up. One of them knocked me out somehow—I can’t even remember. God, this never happens. It’s never like this.”

“Lucinda’s dead.” I told him about the mysterious big vampire and his little henchman and how they’d taken Ivory and I had no idea why.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He looked up at me suddenly. “I want you to go home now. I’ll be there shortly.”

“You were unconscious—”

“I’m fine. I promise.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked as he got to his feet and pulled me to mine.

“Ivory and I have a place we’re supposed to meet if anything goes wrong. I’m going there to see if he managed to get away.”

“Yeah. Maybe he got away . . .”

Feeling dazed, I let him steer me out of the alley. He walked with me until I was safely in the truck. They keys were beneath the front seat, where Ivory apparently kept them any time he was hunting vampires. Les handed them to Aleskie and then ordered her to drive me home.

“We couldn’t have stopped them,” she said quietly, though knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. “That guy was huge. And the little one . . . I didn’t like the look in his eyes. At least Lucinda’s dead.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess we’d better go.”

“Yeah,” I repeated blankly, watching Les get on his bike. “I guess so.”

~

We arrived home a good twenty minutes before Les and I used the time to change into sweats. “What’s taking him so long?” I asked Aleskie anxiously. “Why isn’t he here by now? Do you think they got him, too?”

“No. I’m sure he’s on his way.”

I wonder if Ivory’s dead.
I’d meant to speculate out loud but the words stayed in my mind. I hugged my knees to my chest and tried not to think of how things would be without him around. Because he
couldn’t
be dead, of course. He hadn’t survived all this time just for some random freaky vampires to take him and kill him in whatever hole they called home. He’d find a way to get back to us. Any minute now, both he and Les would walk through the door . . .

But Les came home alone. He slammed the door and, without looking at either Aleskie or me, began to pace the living room floor.

“He wasn’t there,” I said.

“No.”

“Why would they take him? Why . . . I don’t even know who they were, or what they would want with him But . . . he said he knew something. About vampires. Do you know what that is?”

Les shook his head. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Well, if we can find that out, we might know why they took him.”

“And why they didn’t just kill him.”

“One of them—the big one, he seemed to be the boss of the other one—killed Lucinda because he didn’t like that
she
was killing people. It was like he had morals or something. It was just . . . weird,” I finished inadequately.

“This whole thing was stupid,” Les said angrily. He clenched one hand into a fist. “We rushed right in with poor planning and the vamps got the better of us and . . .
Damn
it. This whole night could have been avoided if we’d just
thought
about it.”

“Aleskie tried to help,” I offered.

“I’m weaker than them,” she said. “I couldn’t do much . . .”

“Yeah, well . . .” Les stopped pacing and shrugged out of his leather jacket, tossing it over the back of the recliner. “Everything happened so fast. Lucinda was like a demon. I’m glad we don’t have to worry about her killing anyone anymore. Here, Asha.” His translucent green eyes on mine, he pulled something out of the waistband of his jeans.

It was Ivory’s gun.

“Oh—I—”

“I know you don’t know how to shoot it. But I’ll teach you. You should keep this for a while so you can protect yourself if . . . anything happens.” He put the gun on the end table by the chair. “Don’t get any ideas, Aleskie.”

She huffed. “I won’t. Don’t you trust me by now? I tried to help tonight!”

“You’re still a vampire, and I don’t trust vampires.”

“Well, Ivory did. He was starting to trust
me
, anyway.”

“He was taken by vampires tonight. I doubt he trusts anyone right now.”

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, loud and insistent.
Ivory
. I shot off the couch but Les beat me there.