Blood Born (12 page)

But she’d been there, engrossed in those damn spell books, obedient and pretty and very, very young—and, unfortunately, very necessary.

He tried to create her scent now, wondering if he could call it up whenever he wanted, which would at least be an explanation even if it was an unwelcome one, but … nothing.

It was all in the blood, he mused. The Warriors’ connections with their conduits, who were always their descendants, and the power of the witch who could undo the curse that hampered all vampires … it all came down to the power of the blood.

Despite the crappy day and getting scared out of her wits, which, after she woke, seemed more than a little silly, Chloe actually got some decent sleep that night. She had the braid dream again, but only after she’d slept over five undisturbed hours. Those five hours felt like heaven. When the dream finally came and woke her up, at least she wasn’t exhausted. And she felt perfectly normal: no dizziness, no shimmering behind her eyes, no anything, just her normal, level-headed self. If something was wrong with her physically, wouldn’t she feel weird all the time? If it was a brain tumor, would she even notice if she felt weird? Probably not, which meant she likely didn’t have a brain tumor. Along the same vein, if she was going nuts, would she
know
she was going nuts, or would she think everyone else was? Food for thought, there.

Because she felt normal and had finally got some sleep, she put off calling her friend for the shrink’s number; after all, it was the weekend, so she wouldn’t be able to get in touch with the doctor until Monday anyway. She spent some time on the computer looking up her own symptoms and came up with some interesting stuff, none of which was very likely unless she wanted to get into witchcraft and spells …
not
. That
was kind of reassuring; maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with her at all; maybe the weird dreams were just that, and didn’t mean anything. Maybe the voice she’d heard was … okay, so she didn’t have an explanation for the voice. She still felt better about the situation than she had the night before.

When it was time to leave for work she got her bag and was actually on the sidewalk in front of her house, walking to the Metro, when she stopped and looked uneasily over her shoulder. No tall blond guy in sunglasses and a long black coat was standing at the end of the block, of course. Why had she been so frightened? All he’d done was talk on his cell phone, and smile at her. Wearing sunglasses at night was dumb, but she’d seen other people do it. The long black coat was also dumb … wasn’t that something drug addicts did? Her overall impression of the blond guy wasn’t of someone on drugs, though; he’d looked too brawny, too healthy, not that she’d been able to see a lot of detail.

But … why had he been there? She knew he didn’t live on the street. She had made a point, at her mother’s urging, of making a note of all her neighbors and what kind of cars they drove, so she’d know if someone strange was casing the neighborhood. Yes, her mother was paranoid about her daughter’s safety, but that had still been a good idea. The blond guy hadn’t been visiting anyone, either, not at that hour. Taking a stroll, maybe?

A chill ran up her spine, even though the bright sunlight had dispelled all the shadows and the street was empty of threatening characters. Abruptly Chloe turned on her heel and went back to the house to fetch her car keys. Her gut instinct for caution might be wrong, but she’d rather be wrong than mugged or dead.

She didn’t like driving in D.C. traffic; the Metro was far more convenient. The only thing that made it tolerable was that she wasn’t driving during rush hour; she went to work before the evening rush hour began, and came home in the wee hours long before the morning madness. But each time she made the drive, Chloe spent most of her time praying that her car wouldn’t break down.

She’d had the burgundy Ford since high school, which meant it was on its last legs … wheels. She’d been putting off buying a new one because the old Ford was paid for. With school, rent, and all her other expenses, it had been nice to not have a car payment, too; she’d been able to save much more than she would have otherwise. But she couldn’t put off getting a new car much longer; that night, after putting in another extremely busy shift at work, she had trouble getting the old car to start. Carlos, bless him, stayed until he was certain she was on her way.

As her car lurched and sputtered into the driveway as if taking its last breath, Chloe faced the inevitable. On Monday, she’d have to begin looking for a new car. She didn’t need anything fancy, just something reliable so she could drive down to see her parents for the holidays and make it to and from work on the days when the Metro closed early, when it was cold, rainy, or when she’d been spooked by strange men on her street.

She was being extra cautious, but when she reached her street she drove to the end of the block, going slowly and letting her headlight beams light up the tree trunks. She didn’t see anyone lurking in the shadows. After making a U turn in the intersection, she drove back to her house and parked. Maybe she seriously needed a vacation, but she still felt uneasy.

Chloe turned off the ignition and got out, automatically
depressing the lock lever before she closed the door. The porch was maybe ten steps away, the front door just a few more. If she bought the house and stayed here, maybe she’d build a small garage out back, connect it to the house with a covered breezeway. That would be nice, especially during bad weather. She could even add a second story over the garage and make a visitor’s suite. She could use the extra storage, too. Of course, the yard was very small, as all yards in this neighborhood were. Was there room to build on? She didn’t know anything about the building codes, but she could find out when the time came.

As she stepped onto the first of the three steps that led to the porch, Chloe thought that she should probably buy the house before she started thinking about renovations.

She didn’t have even a whisper of warning, before he was on her.

    About damn time. Luca had been waiting over two days for this moment.

A dark-clothed figure slipped out of the building, using a back exit where the light conveniently hadn’t been turned on. Recognizing his prey by both shape and movement, Luca rose silently to his feet from behind the heating and air unit he’d been using as both shelter and concealment, and floated from the roof to the ground.

Trailing a vampire, especially a strong one, was an exercise in discipline. He had to maintain absolute control over his body, because a vampire’s senses were acute. He couldn’t make a sound, not even an unguarded breath. Over the centuries Luca had learned how to reach out with his own senses and isolate his prey’s heartbeat, synchronize his own heartbeat to that of his prey so the other vampire wouldn’t hear that telltale
second heartbeat and know someone was behind him, and he had to do it fast, within two beats at the most. If there was any wind he had to position himself so his scent didn’t carry, and sometimes that was damn difficult. He also had to make certain that he moved only when he couldn’t be seen.

Scent was the most difficult sense to bypass, because he couldn’t control the wind. He’d tried; no dice. He also had to account for the possibility that his prey might have a heightened sense of danger awareness, something that developed with time; a vampire either learned and grew, or died young. Maybe it was his own force field of energy that set off the alarm in his prey, in which case Luca could do everything right and something would still alert the prey to his presence. It was a real pisser when that happened.

He was relieved to at last be doing something, anything. When he’d first left the Council building, almost three days ago now, he’d urgently needed to feed; being awake so long, being out in the daylight, had seriously sapped his strength. He’d done the most expedient thing, glamoured the next jogger he encountered, and took the woman to his parked rental. To anyone passing by, they would have looked as if they were making out, especially as the woman had her arms around him. Then he’d taken her back to where he’d found her, the small wound on her neck already almost healed. The only effect she’d feel was that she’d have to cut her jogging routine short because she was unaccountably tired.

Finding a place to rest, to get out of the sun, had been a calculated risk, but one he’d had to take. Using his secondary ID and credit card, he’d checked into a nearby small hotel, pulled the covers from the bed and dumped them in the tub, stripped off his clothes, then closed the door to the bathroom and settled in the tub for a few hours of refreshing total darkness. His entire body
seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Despite the discomfort of fitting his six-plus frame in a five-foot bathtub, despite the hardness, he’d slept like a baby.

When he woke, it was almost nine o’clock at night, and full darkness was looming.

After tossing the covers back onto the bed he quickly showered and got dressed again, then headed back to the Council headquarters. He didn’t approach the building itself; instead, he settled himself on the roof of the building next door. Then he waited.

For almost three long damn days, he waited. He did take breaks, to get away from the noon sun, to sleep a little, to feed, but he spent most of the time on that roof, waiting for his prey to leave the building, watching to see who came and went.

None of the Council members had left, unless there was a tunnel that came out in the basement of some neighboring building, but given the residential nature of the area he didn’t think so. There was very little activity, which made it easy for him to keep watch but at the same time was boring as hell. If he guessed right, he almost didn’t need to keep watch during the day, but he did it anyway, just in case.

He had almost decided that nothing was going to happen tonight, either, because the hours were ticking toward sunrise. The vampire he was following could withstand sunrise, to some extent, but most of the rogue vampires enlisted in the uprising wouldn’t have the same ability. Either the errand or meeting was expected to be a short one, or his prey was up to something else entirely.

He stayed well back, often losing sight of his target but using his senses of smell and hearing to stay on track. It was a delicate game he played, one of balance; he had to stay close enough that he could follow, but not close enough that he could be detected.

Being followed evidently wasn’t something Enoch had considered, because he never once stopped to check his surroundings, or so much as looked over his shoulder.

Luca had known from the first time he’d stepped into Hector’s quarters that Enoch was the killer; even if he hadn’t been able to read the residual energy, he’d have known from listening to Enoch’s rapid heartbeat, from the smell of fear oozing from every cell. He’d been tempted to execute him on the spot, or at least take him into custody for questioning. He hadn’t for one simple reason: he wanted to know who had given the orders. Enoch hadn’t acted on his own authority. Hector had suspected that someone on the Council was a traitor and he’d almost certainly been right, but there was also the chance that the Council member wasn’t the one giving the orders, that someone from outside was the actual leader. Personally, Luca thought the traitor had to be a Council member, simply because of the enormous egos involved. He couldn’t think of a single sitting member who would willingly take orders from another member, much less from someone on the outside.

If he’d acted then, he wouldn’t have found out who was behind it all. He had carefully watched Enoch’s every move in the Council chamber, but Enoch was both smart and careful; not once had he looked at any member who wasn’t speaking, not once had he volunteered any extra information in an effort to tip off his cohort. He’d been sweating it, though, spooked by how much Luca had already been able to tell but not knowing exactly what else could be read at the scene.

If the rebels were meeting anywhere, it wasn’t at the Council headquarters, which only made sense. Therefore Luca’s best bet was to follow Enoch and see where he went, who he met, maybe overhear a name. Then he’d kill the son of a bitch.

Enoch was bearing north and east. He was moving fast, using vampire speed, but there wasn’t much risk that anyone would see him because of the hour. He did use some caution, staying in the deepest shadows much of the time. Luca stayed with him as Enoch moved deeper into an older, less affluent neighborhood. This didn’t strike him as a good meeting place, Luca thought. People lived in neighborhoods like this for years and years, and they paid attention to who came and went, and what went on. What was Enoch doing here?

    A bare, burly arm circled her neck and jerked her backward off the step, back onto the sidewalk. Chloe gasped, instinctively bringing her hands up to grip her attacker’s arm as the pressure on her throat increased. Clamping his free hand over her mouth, he lifted her off her feet and held her there, choking. Panicked, she jerked her head back, slung her elbows, kicked at his shins, but it was like fighting with a rock.

Colored spots swam in front of her eyes, and in despair she realized she was close to passing out. The thought came, bitter and angry, that she wasn’t paranoid, after all. If anything, she hadn’t been paranoid enough. Her thoughts darted. Her keys, her pepper spray—
shit!
She’d dropped them in her instinctive fight for air, trying to loosen the killing hold around her neck.

She was going to die. The realization hit her like a fist to the gut. She was going to die because some punk
dick
head was too much of an asshole to
work
for a living, choosing instead to rob and kill women like her, and knowing that made her so furious that the world shrank to a tiny point, a point filled with nothing but wild determination to tear him limb from limb, to dance in his blood, to
stay alive
. Her muscles surged,
heat flared until she felt as if her skin would melt. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t get a curse out, but a rhythmic snarl started in her chest and rolled up her throat, feral, savage. Wildly she threw her head back again, trying to catch him in the nose. She dug her nails into his skin, scratching as hard and deep as she could, marking the bastard so maybe at least the cops could find him and he’d—