Embrace the Twilight (12 page)

By noon, he had booked himself a suite near theirs and made a fast trip to a “hard to find” weapons and equipment merchant by the name of Mike Mulcahey, who'd been a fellow Special Forces soldier years ago. He was one of the good guys. Not exactly legal, but he only dealt with relatively legit private operatives—nothing shady or un-American. He prided himself on his patriotism, in fact.

Will picked several cleverly designed surveillance devices that would make his job one hell of a lot easier. Mike talked him into taking a few other items from his “clearance” rack. Hell, Will didn't know what the hell he would ever need plastic explosive and timing devices for, but Mike needed them gone for some reason, so Will figured the least he could do was help an old buddy out. He put that carefully bundled package in his trunk, underneath the spare tire. It was illegal as hell. But he took the bag of surveillance equipment into the front seat with him.

He was just heading back into his newly acquired suite with his sackful of goodies when the two adventurers emerged from their room next door, smiling and talking. He glanced sideways at them while pretending to search for his key, taking mental notes. They were dressed similarly, in tight-fitting, low-rise jeans, and blouses that showed off their tiny waists. Amber's jeans were slightly darker blue, her top a robin's-egg-colored tank top with the words ‘Boys Lie' on the front. Alicia's top was a pale lilac skintight T-shirt that made him wonder if it were designed to be that small, or if she'd bought it in a child's size. He hadn't paid much attention to what young girls were wearing since he'd been their age. The shirt had a kitten on the front, and her belly button had a silver ring poked through it. Amber didn't have a ring in her belly. He wondered briefly if that was a style choice, or one based on her tendency to bleed a lot, which made him look up to her earlobes. No holes in them, either.

“So breakfast in the hotel and then shopping on Fifth Avenue,” Amber said.

“Then the MTV studio to see if we can spot any stars, and then…” Alicia frowned. “Then what, Amber?”

Amber shrugged. “We'll play it by ear. Definitely clubbing tonight.”

“Definitely.”

The two headed down the hall toward the elevators, but Amber stopped walking, just stopped. Then she turned slowly and looked directly at him.

Will made sure his full attention appeared to be focused on unlocking his door. But he felt those eyes on him like a physical touch. Had she caught a glimpse of him last night? Was the girl on to him already? Damn, she was good.

He slipped inside but didn't close the door all the way, so he could listen.

“What's wrong, Amber?”

There was a pause. Then a sigh. “Nothing. Except that I'm starting to get as paranoid as my parents.”

“No way. No one is as paranoid as your parents—except maybe my mom. Come to think of it, we'd better call my mother over breakfast or she'll send out the National Guard.”

“Worse yet, Aunt Rhiannon once the sun goes down. She's closer. If she's home.”

“God help us if she is!” They both laughed; then he heard the bell of the elevator ping, the doors closed, and their voices faded.

Perfect. He would have time to work while the girls had their breakfast, and hopefully he would still be able to catch them before they left the hotel.

He used the magnetic key card his pal Mike had provided to open the girls' suite. It was easy enough that it made him nervous—because it would be just as easy for anyone else. He didn't think Jameson Bryant was the paranoid type, contrary to his daughter's opinion. He came off as intelligent and genuinely concerned for his child's safety. Will had to assume the man had reason to be.

Will was quick, and he was thorough. Within ten minutes he'd planted a listening device in the girls' suite, so he would be able to hear if they got into trouble, and he'd lined the door with a sensor wire so thin it was almost invisible. The magnetic strip on the door frame was no more noticeable than a strip of transparent tape would have been.

He closed the door and took the indicator—a box with an on-off switch and two lights—from his bag of tricks. When he flipped the switch on, the green light lit up. Will opened the door. The green light went out, and the red light came on as a soft “chirp” emanated from the box.

Perfect. He would know any time their hotel door was opened.

He dropped the box back into his bag and left the girls' room, returning to his own. It only took a few more minutes to complete the work there. He left the indicator box on his bedside stand, set up the receiver and headphones for the listening devices right beside it, and he was done.

Checking his watch, congratulating himself on his time, he took the two remaining items from the bag—two calculator-size tracking devices and an ordinary-looking ballpoint pen. He tucked the “pen” and one of the trackers into his pockets, putting the other one into a drawer for safekeeping. Always have backup—especially when it came to electronics—that was part of his training. Finally he headed down to the hotel dining room.

He didn't have time to eat. The girls were already signing their check, heading for the nearest exit. God help him. He managed to grab a Danish from the continental breakfast buffet. No time for coffee. They were going to kill him before the week was out. He hadn't even slept.

He gave them a few paces, then went through the revolving doors behind them.

 

Sarafina rose at sundown, and her devoted servants were awaiting her. Misty had been an addict of a different kind before Fina had found her. She'd been about to sell her infant daughter to a dealer in exchange for a bit of the crystal-like substance she called “rock.”

The dealer's mind was easily pierced, easily read, and his intentions toward the girl child had been so ugly that Sarafina had only taken the briefest glimpse before retreating in revulsion.

When she had finished her work that night, the dealer had been lying dead in an alley. She hadn't had the stomach to drain him, so she'd broken his neck instead.

She'd fed, instead, from the mother, who hadn't had any of her drugs in several days, so the blood was fairly uncontaminated, though weak and lacking in body. When Misty had hovered on the brink of death, Sarafina had given the woman a few precious drops of her own blood. Not enough to transform her. One couldn't transform an ordinary mortal, anyway. But one could addict them and thereby enslave them. Especially one with the will of a gnat.

She had tossed the limp, barely conscious woman into the back of her limo that night, gotten into the back with the infant and told Edward to proceed.

The baby didn't cry. Nor did it laugh. It had very little expression whatsoever. It was filthy, emaciated and bruised. She would be surprised if the child survived at all.

Sarafina was far from soft. But children were, unfortunately, a weakness of hers. She'd never borne one of her own. It was her one regret. Had she had a child, born of her own flesh, surely it would be the one being in the universe she could trust not to turn on her. To walk away.

Then again, there was no guarantee of that, was there?

She had Edward drive the limo up to the main entrance of the closest hospital. There she spotted a group of people in green scrubs, standing outdoors having a cigarette break. She lowered her window. “You there. Come quickly!”

They looked up, frowning, but they came closer to the car. When they were close enough, she thrust the baby out the open window, into the arms of one of them. She had only a glimpse of the man's wide, stunned eyes before Edward hit the gas and the limo sped away.

And now she had Misty. No longer a crack whore but an efficient and utterly devoted drone who would give her life for her mistress and a few precious drops of her new drug of choice.

Misty came the moment Sarafina opened her eyes, sensing her mistress's wakening. She stood now beside the bed, holding a robe of black satin. “Did you rest well, my lady?”

“Quite well, thank you.” Sarafina slid her arms into the whisper-soft sleeves and pulled the robe around her.

“There's a bath freshly run and waiting.”

“Very good.”

Misty pushed back her sleeve, thrust her arm forward, wrist turned up.

Sarafina glanced at it, at the many tiny wounds dotting the skin. Then she shook her head only once. “I'm not hungry this morning, Misty. I have a lot on my mind.” She turned and headed into the bathroom. “Bring the emerald silk. And choose my jewelry. I'm feeling…big and bangly tonight.”

Misty nodded and scurried away toward the dressing room with the walk-in closet. Sarafina went to the bathroom, shed the robe and stepped into the sunken tub, descending into the hot water and letting it ease some of the tension from her body.

She had to find another place. The bar she had come to love so much was no longer an option. She didn't really know why she had developed this habit of going out at night to sit in crowded places. She didn't like associating with people, especially mortals. But she enjoyed observing them as they associated with each other. She enjoyed the noise and constant interaction around her while she sat alone, penning her thoughts and memories into a journal, wondering why she bothered.

Still, she'd become fond of the bar in the Village. It was a shame that man had found her there.

That man.

Sarafina closed her eyes and called his image to mind. He was so achingly familiar to her. From the moment he'd approached her, she had known him. He was that voice she'd heard in her mind any number of times throughout her mortal life. The day of her cousin's death, the day she'd learned of her lover's betrayal. The day she'd been transformed into one of the mighty ones. She had believed him to be a familiar ghost or a spirit guide, or perhaps a guardian angel of some kind.

Any of those things would have been preferable to what he claimed—and she had to believe—he was. An ordinary mortal.

God, he didn't even possess the Belladonna Antigen! He was not one of The Chosen. There was no earthly reason why she should feel this…this powerful bond with him. No reason why he should have been able to journey, somehow, through time and across continents, to be with her during the most pivotal moments of her life.

But it was even more impossible to believe that he was making it up, lying to her. No. She had told no one of the strong, gentle, loving voice in her head. No one. She hadn't even written of it in her journals. And yet he knew, he knew details, and he gave the same name.

And he was in New York, where he had told her he would be, during the time he had told her he would be there. But more than any of that, she knew he was the same—she knew. She felt him. Sensed him.

Loved him.

No! Not that. Never that.

Her spirit lover had abandoned her. And while she had vowed never to care about anyone again so much that she would miss them in their absence, she had come to New York all the same. Perhaps just to find out for sure if her spirit lover had ever been real.

Now that she knew, she wished she didn't. She would rather have gone on believing him a god or a ghost than to know him for an ordinary man. A mortal, at that.

No. She mustn't return to the bar. He knew where to find her, and she did not want to see him again.

It was a lie. She
did
want to see him again. She was longing to see him again. But she couldn't. It was a matter of self-preservation.

When she emerged from the tub, Sarafina found her clothes waiting on her bed and Misty hovering nearby, a hairbrush in her hand.

Sarafina took it from her. “I'll brush my own hair tonight, love. Go and tell Edward to get the car ready. We're going exploring tonight.”

“Right away, my lady.”

“S
o far, we're totally striking out,” Alicia said.

She wasn't whining. Not yet, anyway. Amber knew it wouldn't be long, though, before Alicia insisted they go back to the hotel and call it a night. The list she'd found on the Net of the best clubs in the city was apparently outdated. She glanced down at the printout in her hand, and then out the window at what looked like an office building, and not a nice one, either.

The cabdriver, a dark-skinned man with brown eyes and lashes to die for, glanced back at the girls. “This the place?” he asked.

“I don't think so,” Alicia said.

“Let's go look. Maybe the club's in the basement or something.”

Amber reached for the door.

“Your friend is right,” the driver said. He had the sexiest accent, Amber thought. She wondered how old he was. He didn't
look
a day over twenty. “This place…no good for you.”

Amber sighed, glancing up and down the street. She could have argued with him but decided against it. Instead she just handed the man some cash and opened her door.

“Amber!”

“I just want to check.”

The driver sighed, shaking his head. “I wait here.”

“Fine.”

“I'm waiting with him,” Alicia pointed out unnecessarily.

Amber thought that was a good idea. God forbid something should scurry in the shadows and give her timid sisterlike friend heart failure. She walked along the sidewalk, located a stairway that led downward and saw a door at the bottom. Beyond the door there was light. She supposed there could be a club down there. The address was right.

She had taken two steps down before three young toughs stepped out of the stairwell at the bottom, looking up at her.

“Mmm, mmm, mmm,” one said, looking her up and down, stepping up the stairs toward her. “You come here lookin' for me?”

She tilted her head to one side. “In your dreams, maybe. I'm looking for a club called The Iron Mill. You know it?”

The young men exchanged glances. She heard them clearly, their minds a clutter of thoughts, all along the same lines. The club had closed several years ago.

“Sure, honey. You found it. It's right through these doors. Come on, I'll walk you down there.”

She smiled slowly. “Nice try.” Shaking her head, she turned to go back up the stairs. The three shot up the stairs, two flanking her. The leader, the guy she'd been talking with, came up right behind her, slid his arms around her waist, one hand cupping her crotch, another, one of her breasts, and jerked her back against him.

“Don't be walking away from me, bitch. That's rude. I just wanna get to know you.”

Amber's heart was in her throat, but she kept her voice level. “Yeah? Okay, then, if you insist.”

“That's better,” he said, nuzzling her neck as he spoke the words.

“Not for you, it isn't.” She slid her hand up to cup his head, then bent low and jerked him hard, driving her elbow behind her into his ribs for good measure.

He flipped over the top of her, landing on his back on the sidewalk. The two on either side of her grabbed her arms. So she used her feet, kicking the one on the left first, catching him in the groin and sending him stumbling right back down those stairs. A spinning back-kick upside the head floored the one on the right. The one on the ground in front of her started to get up, so she pressed her foot to his throat. “Don't even move.”

He nodded as much as he could, sucking air through his pinched windpipe.

She took the foot off and stepped over him, toward the waiting cab.

And there was Alicia, halfway between the cab and the stairway, a broken bottle in her hand. Shy, timid, easily frightened Alicia, white as a sheet, with eyes so round Amber thought she could have fallen into them. She'd been about to jump into the fray.

Amber smiled. “You're the best, you know that?”

“Are you okay?” Alicia asked. Her voice was shaking.

“Sure I am.” She took the bottle, tossed it toward the nearby Dumpster, where Alicia had, no doubt, found it in the first place, then looked past her.

The cabdriver was still inside, tucking something shiny and metallic back underneath his seat. The cutie had a gun, and while he hadn't leaped to her defense, Amber thought he wouldn't have let her get killed, either. She was listening to his thoughts when she sensed someone watching them.

She turned, looking back down the street.

There was a tall man getting into a dark-colored car. He was familiar, but she wasn't certain why.

“Who is that?” Alicia asked.

“I don't know. He seems…I'm sure I've seen him before.”

Alicia frowned. “Do you think he was rushing over here to help?”

“That was my first impression.”

“Mine, too,” Alicia said. “Hmm, people always say New Yorkers never do stuff like that. You know, get involved. Try to help someone out.”

“Maybe people are wrong.”

“Maybe.”

The guy in the black car drove on by them. His windows were tinted, so she still couldn't see his face.

Alicia opened the cab door and got in. She picked up the printout, which had fallen to the floor, and handed it over the back seat to the driver as Amber got in. “We want to go to a decent dance club in a nice area. Can you recommend one?”

“You haven't had enough excitement for one night, even now, eh?” He gave a nod. “Lock your doors.” Then he perused the list, muttering, “Closed, out of business, full of hookers, drug den, closed—ah, this one. This one is good.”

Amber locked her door and watched the three guys helping each other to their feet and limping away, their backs to the cab.

Alicia took the list from the driver. “Star-Crossed?”

“That's the one. They have loud music, many kids, much dancing. And it's uptown. Safe for you. I take you there now?”

Amber took the list from Alicia, found the club near the bottom. “Sure, why not?”

 

Will parked around the next corner, in a spot where he would see the taxi when it left. It was a one-way street, so it would have to pass by him. He left the car running, put it in Park, and then sat there mentally replaying what he had just witnessed.

The girl fought like a commando.

He closed his eyes, gave his head a shake. He'd pulled over, seen her get out of the taxi, and thought she didn't have the common sense of a ten-year-old to be poking around the way she was, in the places she was. Then the young thugs were on her, and Will was out of the car, heading over there as fast as his limp would allow, fully intending to break some heads. He was afraid for the girl, angry at the punks. But part of his mind was thinking about how angry her father would be if he let anything happen to her. That wasn't any part of his reason for keeping her safe—he had more honor than that. His mission was reason enough. Always had been. But for the first time it occurred to him that he had got himself into a rather dicey situation here. Should he fail, he doubted Amber's vampire relatives would rest until they made him pay.

Until that moment, he hadn't considered that, mostly because failure was beyond the scope of his imagination. He'd never yet failed in a mission. Then again, this was the first job he'd undertaken since the injury. He wasn't the same man he'd been before.

He'd been halfway to the girl when she'd sprung into action. Within a heartbeat, all three of her assailants were on the ground, and she was standing on the throat of one of them.

Now that he had a minute to process it, he reviewed what he had seen. The flips, the elbow, the kicks. Her form, ease, confidence. She'd obviously had some martial arts training. Lots of it, maybe. Her father had said she was stronger than ordinary girls. So maybe her poking around in dangerous parts of the city wasn't as much stupidity as it was confidence that she could handle anything that might come up.

That kind of confidence, Will knew, could get a person killed.

The cab drove by, and Will put the car into gear and followed. This girl was going to be even more trouble than he'd feared.

 

“Okay, okay. Once again, I'm forced to admit you were right,” Alicia said as she and Amber wound their way through the club. “This place is great! And to think it was only a couple of blocks from our hotel the whole time.”

Amber's senses were on full alert. She felt…something. Something besides the powerful bass beat echoing in her chest. The band was loud. Not great, not bad. Definitely loud. The people lining the dance floor seemed to like them well enough. And there were plenty, so many bodies gyrating in the place that you couldn't walk through without brushing up against strangers. The red and green strobe lights gave an otherworldly effect to the place. But Amber didn't think it was the lighting or the loud music or the bodies of strangers giving her the odd sensation in her belly.

“Let's dance!” Alicia said, for once losing her shyness. She tugged on Amber's hand, until they created a spot for themselves amid the crowd, and they began to dance.

Amber told herself to relax. Her parents had gotten to her, in spite of her certainty that they were nuts. Oh, she loved them. She loved them with everything in her. But she had to show them that she was grown up now, strong and sure of herself, and perfectly capable of surviving a week without them hovering over her. Maybe once she proved to them that the world would not come to a bloody, brutal end the moment she spent a night on her own, they would ease off a little bit. She knew they loved her, but they were smothering her.

So why was she undermining herself now by getting all nervous and jerky? Probably the fact that, for the first time in her life, she was without her mom and dad's protective wings wrapped around her was making her feel vulnerable. Heck, she should have expected it.

Like the guy in the room next to theirs in the hotel. He seemed like a perfectly okay guy. Just because she couldn't read him very well, that didn't mean he was up to no good. Some people were naturally guarded. Most didn't even know it. And just because the guy in the car earlier had looked similar to him, didn't mean it was the same guy. It was dark outside, and he wasn't near a streetlight. She could see in the dark better than a mortal, but nowhere near as well as a vamp.

And whatever she was sensing here, now, was different. It wasn't him. It wasn't a threat, exactly, it was…

She stopped dancing, her eyes scanning the crowded room.

Alicia stopped, too, searching Amber's face. “What's wrong?”

“There's a vampire here.”

“Shit.” Alicia looked around the room, too. “What are you getting, Amber?”

“Old. Powerful. Female, I think.”

“Jesus, Amber, we should get out of here.”

Amber glanced at Alicia, saw the fear in her eyes. “I really don't think we have to worry.”

“Yes, we do. Look, Amber, you may be half-vamp, but I'm not. We both know they aren't all like the ones we know. Some are rogues. Some are…killers. How many times has your dad told us never to go anywhere near a strange vampire?”

Sighing, Amber nodded, once again scanning the room and seeing no vampire. She must be staying out of sight. “Fine. We'll go back to the hotel and call it a night, okay?”

Alicia sighed her relief, and the two turned to make their way to the exit—only to bump into the broad, solid chest of a tall, dark man, who walked with the help of a cane.

Amber looked up, into his face, and she knew suddenly. He was the same man who was in the suite next to theirs. He was the same man she'd glimpsed at the concert last night, and the same man who'd been on the street when those thugs had attacked her.

He was following them.

She held Alicia's hand, squeezed it and glanced at her, a single message in her eyes.
My parents were right.

 

Sarafina was unsure this new place she had found was going to work any better than the three she'd already dismissed. The lights flashed too much, and the music was a bit too loud. Ah, but it was full of life. Full of youth. That part of it was perfect. Perhaps she could work on the minds of the management, convince them to make a few changes and—

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she sensed someone near. Her head came up, eyes scanning the crowd, particularly those nearest the door.

Two girls. One of whom was not quite mortal.

Sarafina squinted, focusing her senses on the child. But the signals were confused and messy. The girl smelled human, but not precisely. She emanated vibrations like a vampire, but not exactly. She bore the antigen—or something very much like it.

What was she?

A moment later, the man came in behind the two. The owner of the voice in her head. Willem Stone.

How the hell had he found her here?