Follow Me When the Sun Goes Down (20 page)

There was no pain.  There was no anything, only a sense of movement as the sounds receded and I couldn’t tell which way was up or down anymore.  Then everything went completely still, and I thought I might have died. 

There were no angels, no devils
– just a black emptiness where nothing penetrated the inky silence.  How long it lasted, I’ll never know, but in one instant I was torn from the void and thrust into a world of pain as someone pulled the arrow free.  I still couldn’t move, but I could feel, and it felt like someone had stabbed me through the heart with a chainsaw.   I couldn’t even pull in a breath to scream, and that made it a thousand times scarier. 

I slowly began to understand that I was being carried through a dank tunnel.  Bit by bit my senses returned, and the stench o
f fetid water and slimy growth assaulted my nose.  My eyes slid open, but it didn’t do me much good in the near dark surroundings. 

“What…”

“Shhh, you’ll be alright now. I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”  The familiar voice reached out to me in the darkness and much too slowly my brain found the corresponding owner. 

“Bishop…”

“We don’t have time to talk, save your strength.  I need to get you out of here.”

I wanted to ask where Rob was.  What had happened?  Who attacked me, and were they caught?  Was I dying?  Why was he dragging me through the sewer, or wherever we were? 

But in the end, all I did was pass out as my body consumed itself to try and repair the massive damage.

* * *

My first waking memory after that was of blood.  Deeper and richer than human blood, I drank on auto pilot, my body craving the powerful elixir to heal the terrible wound in my chest.   But soon enough, the fog cleared and I was able to take in my surroundings and who I was with.

“Bishop?”

“Yes.”  His voice sounded thick, strained, and I remembered I’d been drinking his blood and what that must have felt like for him.  Talk about awkward.  I let a few moments pass for him to collect himself before I spoke again.

“Where are we?” 

I was laying across an ugly brown couch, stiff and new, my head propped up across his lap with a couple of pillows.  His arm was conveniently placed for me to feed, but that was the only contact I had with his body. 

“We’re in
London, in a safe house I set up.”

House was a bit of a misnomer.  It was a studio apartment, sparsely furnished with the basics
, a tiny bathroom tucked into one corner.  I could smell meals cooking from neighboring apartments and the scents competed with one another.  Curry?  Spaghetti?  I stopped trying to identify the miasma and turned my head to look up at Bishop.

“We’re in
London?  How did we get here?”

“I carried you.”

I had a dim recollection of him carrying me through a stinky tunnel.  “You carried me all the way to London?”

“Until I could steal a car, ye
s.”

“Where’s Rob,” I wondered aloud, “and Felix?”

“Back at the mansion.”

I looked down, afraid to see what the wound in my chest would look like, but my skin was smooth and flawless.  I was also naked except for my panties, a thin white sheet covering me for modesty’s sake.  The idea that he’d been handling me nearly nude didn’t bother me
– he’d seen my goodies before – but I did feel somewhat vulnerable without my clothes.  Sitting up, I wrapped the sheet around me, noticing that my muscles felt heavy and sore all over.

“Why do I feel like I just ran a marathon?” I groaned, shifting my legs so they were tucked up next to me.

“Your body went through a pretty traumatic injury.  While it focused on healing the damage to your chest, it drew from other parts of your body.  I gave you some of my blood to help once we got here, but I couldn’t get you to take much before now.  You were too far gone.” 

That explained it then.  “So, that was torpor, huh?  I don’t recommend it,” I winced, rolling my head first one way and then the other.  “How long was I out?” 

“You pretty much stayed passed out all last night and all of today too.”  He stood up and tossed the pillows onto the bed.  “How are you feeling now?  Can I get you anything?”  His whole posture was solicitous, hanging on my every word.  If I hadn’t been shot in the chest, I would’ve thought he was replaced by a pod person without his usual indifference. 

“I don’t suppose you have anything I can wear?” 
Even an oversized t-shirt would’ve been welcome. 

“Oh, yeah, sure.”  He went to the nightstand and opened a drawer.  “I picked you up a few things when I went out to hunt before.  Let me know if the sizes don’t work, I’ll find you something else.”

“Thanks,” I smiled, doing a quick check of the tags.  The shirt would probably be a smidge tight, but I didn’t care.  “No, this is fine.”  I let the sheet drop to pull it on, and he immediately turned around, giving me some privacy.  My movements were slow, and the t-shirt did stretch snugly across my chest, but it was better than the sheet.

“What time is it?” I asked, as I worked on getting into the jeans.

“A little past midnight.”

Not so much time, I supposed, to come back from the dead.  I understood the mechanics of wood piercing a vampire’s heart, and the idea that I could
’ve been permanently left in that blank void or worse chilled me to the bone. 

Once I was suitably covered, I
sank back down again, feeling woozy.  “What happened back there?”  My memory after being shot was sketchy to say the least.

Bishop came back to the couch, picking up the sheet to fold it neatly as he replied.  “It was pandemonium after you were shot.  Delegates scrambling to escape before they got shot too, security trying to
reach the stage.  It took me forever to get to you.  When I caught up to the ones that had you, they were already down a couple of levels heading towards the old escape tunnels.  The players… it’s like they deliberately got in the way to keep anyone from catching up with you or the death figure.  I took down a couple of them, but I couldn’t be sure who was in on it and who wasn’t beyond the two that had you.  Death wasn’t with them.”

“Then nobody caught him?”

“I don’t know, I was too focused on getting you out of there.”

“Then he could still be out there,” I realized with a frown.  “Who were those guys?  The troupe was mostly human, weren’t they?  Did someone hire them to attack me, do you think, or was I in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Bishop put his hand up to stem the unending flow of questions.  “I don’t know.  The ones I caught up to were vampires, not human.  I’m assuming the others have been rounded up by now and questioned, but I haven’t checked in with anyone yet.”

I sat up a little higher.  “But you did call in to tell them I’m
safe, right?”

“No, I didn’t want them to track us here while you were still so vulnerable.”

I could understand the wisdom of that, but Rob and everyone must’ve been going nuts.  “Let me see your phone, I have to let them know I’m alive.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said, his hands coming up again.  “Not until we know who was behind the attack.”

“For all we know they’ve already picked him up.  We need to call and check in, see what’s going on.” 

“And I will,
but not from this phone.”  His face softened.  “How are you feeling?”

“Good, I guess, all things considered.  Just tired, and sore, you know?”  Then again, maybe he didn’t know.  “Have you ever been paralyzed like that before?”

“No,” he replied with a quick shake of the head.  “I’ve seen it done to mete out punishment, but I’ve never felt it myself.  Was it… was it awful?”

“It was scary, mostly because I didn’t know what was going on.  But torpor was just a big lot of nothing
.  It actually hurt a lot more when you pulled the arrow out.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“No, I know.”  I reached over to pat his arm across the back of the couch and gave him a soft smile.  “Thanks, it sounds like I would’ve been a goner if you hadn’t gotten to me.”  I’d been completely defenseless for as long as the wood pierced my heart.  It bothered me more than I liked to find out that they’d been taking me somewhere rather than just killing me right on the stage.  

“Anja, we might have some problems between us, but I’ll always… help you if I can.”

For a moment there I thought he might actually admit to some real feelings for me, but it was the same old song and dance.  It didn’t matter.  In a way I didn’t want him to suddenly profess his undying devotion, because I was already half in love with Rob. 

“Well
, thanks anyway, who knows what they might’ve done with me if they’d gotten away with it.”  The more I thought about it, the more I started to wonder why it was Bishop who’d gotten to me instead of Rob. 

“I really need to call and check in though.  Can I please see your phone?”

“I told you, it’s not safe.”  He shook his head.  “In a little while I’ll go make that call, but for now you need your rest.”

“I’m not going to sit around here on my bum while they’re out there worried about me.  Now
, if you won’t give me your phone, I’ll go out and find a payphone.” I rose to my feet, but a wave of dizziness had me closing my eyes and I let out a tiny groan.  Perfect timing.     

Bishop was instantly by my side, his hands holding on to my arms for support.  “Hey, you’re not going anywhere.  Not until I decide you’re well enough to travel.”

“I’m pretty sure I can survive a car ride back to the mansion.” 

“No, I mean well enough to travel home to
California.”

“Huh?” I blinked, not tracking for a moment.  “I’m not going back to
California, the Gathering’s not even halfway over.  I’ve only had like two meetings.”

“I don’t care, you can have Felix finish up for you, or make some private arrangements.  You’re not going back there until we know who’s responsible for the attack on you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I balked.  “For all we know the bad guys have already been caught.”

“Well, until we do, I’m not letting you go back there,” he said, a touch of iron seeping into his voice, but I wasn’t having it. 

“It’s not up to you.  Now are you going to let me see your phone or not?”

“It’s absolutely up to me until I’m sure you’re back up to par.”

“Bishop, I’m fine.  I can take care of myself.”   

“I think it’s pretty clear from what happened that you can’t.  It’s not your fault, no one can safegu
ard against an attack like that.  That’s why you have to stay away, don’t you see?”

I didn’t like the note of condescension that
crept into his voice when he said it wasn’t my fault for getting shot.  “I can see that running away isn’t going to make anything better.  Whoever it is that planned this attack has to know that I’m not that easy to take out of the picture.  That’s why I’m going back to the mansion tonight.”

“The hell you are.”  His arms crossed over his chest, an implacable expression settling over his features. 

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am for as long as you’re as weak as a kitten.”

“Ugh, would you stop being a bully for two minutes and listen to me?  I’m telling you I want to go back.” 

“How am I being a bully for looking out for your safety?”

Why was he being so obstinate?  I’d be safe enough in my own suite, surrounded by my friends, most of whom would surely offer some kind of protection in a fight.  I started to have the sneaking suspicion there was something else behind his reasons for keeping me there.  “Why don’t you admit why you want to keep me here to yourself?”

Bishop stared at me blankly.  “I just told you why you need to stay here.”

“You don’t even know, do you?” I shook my head in amazement.  “You really can’t admit to yourself that there’s a reason why you might want me around, can you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fact that you’re still in love with me and it has nothing to do with compulsion.”  Suddenly I knew it was true, and from the way his eyes widened and then immediately narrowed, I could see he’d realized it too. 

“That has nothing to do with it at all.  This is about your safety, pure and simple.”

“I just got shot. I almost died and you still can’t admit your feelings for me are real?  Are you telling me you felt nothing for me when you saw me lying there with an arrow sticking out of my chest?”

“I felt worried
.  Who wouldn’t be?” he hedged.

“You know, it doesn’t matter.”  It occurred to me that I didn’t even care anymore.  Let him be emotionally crippled all on his own.  My situation with Rob might not be a bed of roses, but not because he was too scared of his own feelings to admit them.  “I’m leaving, and unless you plan on conking me out like a cave man, then you’d better step out of my way.”