Ghost Soldiers (14 page)

He closed his eyes. Blood taste lingered in his mouth, and his wrist throbbed where he'd opened it. He had the number, and now he could keep Maria safe. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling he'd committed a sin which made all his others pale in comparison.

 

The satellite phone felt strangely heavy in his hand as he walked outside, leaving Bailey's corpse in the silent darkness behind him. It seemed certain the Thorn would eavesdrop on his call, but he had no other choice.

He dialed the number Bailey had whispered and waited in the building's deepest shadows as the call went through. He scanned the compound and searched the sky. Dawn would be here soon. He didn't think Cojocaru's people could've chased them this far. Not yet. Bailey had said the knights Command had dispatched would take at least fifteen hours to get here, though he had no idea how long it would take the vampire hunter to show up. Didn't matter—not at the moment. First he had to stop Maria from coming to Europe after him.

Romania was Eastern European Time, six hours ahead of Boston. By now Maria would've been up for almost half the night. He didn't want voicemail. He wanted to hear her voice.
Needed
to hear it. He had to know she was safe.

The voice that came across the speaker was wary, tense, but unmistakably Maria's. “Who is this?”

“It's me,” he said, smiling despite everything.

“Karl?” When she spoke his name it trembled with hesitant hope, painful joy. He closed his eyes, reveling in the sound.

“I can't talk for long. The sun will be up soon.”

“Where are you? Are you okay? God, you're not hurt, are you?”

“I'm still in Romania.” He dodged the question of his wounds, and he certainly couldn't speak of Turning Bailey. It'd be like ramming a broken cue stick through her heart from four thousand miles away. He needed to look her in the eye when he told her what he'd done. She deserved that much at least. “My target's still alive.”

“Cojocaru.” She spat the word like a curse.

He should've felt more shock that she knew about Cojocaru. Instead he only felt a weary, jaded lack of surprise. “How do you know about Cojocaru?”

“Because that bastard sent some kind of yellow-eyed freak with a golden dog collar to try and recruit me. I told him to take his offer and make a cake of it by fucking himself with an eggbeater, and all of a sudden he let drop that he
knew
about you. Cojocaru fucking
expected
you. Said something about how you'd make a mistake, strike at a friend, and you'd be forgiven. The guy's goddamn crazy.” She sucked in a ragged breath to keep talking. “Somebody in the Thorn must've given you up. Shit, I've been chewing my claws off with worry, I can't even think. God, it's good to hear your voice.”

“Maria, stay away from Cojocaru's people. They're extremely dangerous.”

“Yeah? So are we, if you remember. Listen, enough of this. Give me a location. I'll be on the next ship with Xiesha. We'll get to you, take this guy down together—or we'll just bounce, go to the mattresses until the shitstorm blows over.”

“No.
Don't
come here. Promise me.”

“Karl, what—?”

“Promise me. Whatever happens, don't come to Romania. I'm on my way back to you now. Swear to me you'll sit tight until I find you.”

She stayed quiet for a long time. “I don't like it. We're stronger together. We always have been.”

“I know.” How much to tell her? If he told her everything—the incoming Thorn knights, the vampire hunter threat, Cojocaru…Bailey—she'd be on a ship anyway, promises be damned. He had to say just enough to warn her, to impress upon her the danger closing in from every side. “But I'm on the run and moving fast. If you come to Romania, you'll end up right in the middle of a war. Boston's safer. Our home turf.”

“It's not exactly champagne and room service in Boston right now either.” She drew another breath. “All right. All right, dammit, we'll sit tight here. Wait for you until the heat dies down. But I don't like it. The Thorn…something's up. This is some kind of burn game.”

“Be careful. The Thorn will be after me because I failed the contract. And that means they'll be after you and Xiesha.”

“Remember MacKenzie? She found me tonight at my father's grave.” She paused. “She's the one who gave me a number to try and reach you, to let you know about Cojocaru.”

His free hand clenched. “What did she say?”

“She wanted me to work for the Thorn if you…if you didn't come back.”

For a time he didn't trust himself to speak. He stood there, leaning against the cold concrete of the building, thoughts blurring through his mind. She'd dodged a bullet by hours. He had to get back to her.

“Don't go there anymore. If the Thorn finds you again, they'll kill you.” He scanned the night sky once more. “Were you followed?”

“No. I used every trick I know. I even had Xiesha help cover my tracks. I'm slippery like the eel.” She started to laugh and choked it off. He heard her sigh out the air she'd drawn in to speak. It was a soft sound. He wanted to touch her lips.

“I'm coming back to you as fast as I can,” he said.

“How long?”

“I don't know.” He stared at the distant mountains. “I don't want to say over this phone.”

“They tapping it?”

“Probably.” Boston was a big city though. If he could make it back, he could evade the Thorn long enough to find her and Xiesha. Then, maybe head to New York or Chicago. Start over if he could. It wasn't likely the Thorn would ever forgive him for turning Bailey. “They already know where I am.”

“What about me?”

“Ditch your cell after this call, just to be safe.”

“You won't be able to reach me again if I toss this cell…”

“I'll see you in person.”

There was a long silence.

“Be careful, Karl.”

“I will. You too.”

More silence.

“I love you,” she said. “I want you back here with all your pieces in the right order.”

He smiled. “Maria. I love you too.”

She laughed. “Sad, us on the phone like this, whispering sweet nothings while the world tries to kill us. I never did the furtive-lover thing well.” She hesitated. “I need you here.”

“When I get back, I won't leave you again.”

“Promises,” she said. “Be safe.” There was a soft click as she disconnected, and she was gone.

He stared at the satellite phone, then spun and hurled it into the cinderblock as hard as he could. It shattered into plastic pieces and bounced off the cement. He walked over and stomped down with his heel, smashing it completely.

Dawn soon. Tomorrow night Bailey would rise…probably not at sunset, but shortly after. Then they'd have to run. Run from everyone.

He walked to the overturned truck as his thoughts circled back to the fight on the mountain. He'd meant to kill Cojocaru, but only succeeded in killing his slaves. The werewolves. The raven. Those humans. Innocent? He had no idea, but it felt like yet another promise broken. Live long enough and you could watch all your promises die.

The truck frame still smoked. He wrenched the back doors open and found Bailey's long sword among the smashed computers and the wreckage. He grabbed the sheath, wincing at the silver's aura. Even with the leather between his hand and the metal, it still felt as if thousands of freezing needles pierced his skin over and over again.

He climbed back out and lowered himself to one knee on the pavement, facing toward the east where the sun would be born. He pulled Bailey's sword from its sheath and reversed it, settling both hands on the hilt and the sword tip on the cement. The intensity of the silver aura increased, and he had to grit his teeth against the repulsion coming in waves from the pure metal. He bowed his head, closed his eyes and tried to find the soundless peace within.
May God honor the slain.

The agony made the muscles in his forearms spasm. He clamped his teeth together so tightly his jaw muscles flared with a steady, searing ache. Again he prayed into the silence.

Peace upon the fallen. Honor upon the fallen.

He never prayed for forgiveness—to do so would only mock all that was good and true in the universe. Slowly, deliberately, he remembered those he'd killed, recalling each as best he could. They may have been only warriors, like him, enslaved to masters who used them all like swords to be cast aside when the blades shattered.

Forgive me for Bailey Fletcher.

And there, with the very next thought, he'd betrayed even the last of his dignity, begging forgiveness when he knew forgiveness wasn't possible. And, as ever, he felt only emptiness out there in the Unseen, a man whispering to a wall of stone or standing in supplication before the abyss.

His hand jerked open. He cried out as the sword grip inlaid with silver wire fell away and the blade clattered on the asphalt. The burns on his skin bit deep into his flesh. The pain was constant and without mercy.

He stood, clutching his hand to his chest. He went back inside, his head down. Bailey lay still and pale where he'd left her. Her chest didn't move. No flutter of pulse. Blood on her lips. He knelt beside her, crushing down on the sorrow that threatened to rise within him like a black and cold wave, and he waited for dawn.

Chapter Fifteen: Rise Unborn

“Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?”

—William Blake,
The Tiger

 

The sun had long since disappeared below the horizon, and twilight had darkened into full night. Karl sat against the wall in the silence and the shadows as he guarded Bailey Fletcher's body. Her blue hair appeared even more striking against the stark whiteness of her skin. Her left hand lay stretched out, palm turned up toward the ceiling, her fingers slightly curled.

Bailey's fingers twitched.

Karl sat forward and shifted onto his knees beside her. In his mind he felt a spark, a small glimmer of a foreign mind, growing stronger with each passing second. He focused his thoughts on it. Through it he could sense Bailey,
feel
her location next to him.

Bailey's fingers closed into a fist. Her head turned to the side then whipped back. Through their Master-sireling link he felt a flash of fear and relief and confusion all intermixed, all swirling within that spark in his mind. She arched her back, lifting her body off the floor before she sagged back down again. Her eyes fluttered and opened. She looked at him and her pupils flared red, the color of a dying sun. Her lips peeled back from her teeth in what could've been a grimace or a grin, and her fangs gleamed white.

“Bailey,” he said. “It's me. Karl.”

She flinched at the sound of his voice and slowly sat up. She ran her fingers over her cheek, sliding them past her lips to feel her fangs. Her throat worked so hard he could see the muscles moving beneath her skin. She opened her mouth wider, panic dancing in her eyes.

“Just breathe in. You have to work at it. It's not automatic anymore.”

She sucked in air with a gasp.

“Now, let it out as you talk. Vocal cords have to vibrate.”

“God…
damn
…weird…”

He said nothing. Watching her. Wondering if some day he'd have to destroy her.

She touched her forehead. “I can feel you in my head. Your presence, but not your thoughts. It's like a spark burning in my mind.”

Karl concentrated and directed a thought straight into the little spark inside his mind.
“This won't be easy. For either of us.”
The words pierced the spark and vanished.

Bailey recoiled and her eyes widened. She paused, staring at him, and frowned. “How do I do that?”

“Form a thought and direct it into that spark. That's our link.”

He waited, and after a moment her thought flashed into his brain, words not images, flowing out through the spark-sensation of her inside his mind.
“Do I have to call you Master?”

“I hate that word,” he answered aloud. He said nothing of the powers he had over her, powers he'd gained because he'd created her—in a twisted way birthed her into this nightfall world. He could force her to do things against her will, make her experience the most exquisite pain or force her to feel joy, call her to him and drive every coherent thought from her mind. Enslave her completely.

Things he would never do—repulsive, evil things that made his heart colder and made him hate what he'd done even more. Master? He refused the title. Yet, she'd never be free of him, and he never free of her, until one or both of them were destroyed.

She shook her head, staring down at her fingers. “I had such strange dreams…”

“Those were your last dreams. Vampire sleep is empty.”

She pulled her coat closed around her, though cold couldn't have bothered her any longer. Her arm was bare where the coat sleeve had burned away, and her skin shone pale and unmarked. No sign of the damage Cojocaru's spell had wrought. Karl's blood and Bailey's change had healed it. She stared at her skin, but he couldn't read the look on her face.

“I thought I was dead,” she said. “I gave up hope you'd change your mind—”

He felt his eyes begin to glow red and did nothing to quell it. “You blackmailed me into turning you. I'll do anything to keep Maria safe, and you knew that and used it against me. You should've told me she'd called. You should've called off the mission. I should destroy you for everything you've done.”

She flinched back from the explosion of fury he shoved across the link and stared at him, eyes wide with fear. She blinked and looked away, but began to speak in a soft voice. “We both knew the chances our mission had been compromised. You knew. I knew, after they killed Vali. We followed orders. Pressed on for our own reasons.”