Night Reigns (16 page)
Bastien stood a head or so taller than Vincent. Melanie wondered, as she watched the immortal console Vincent, how anyone could think him the brutal, heartless, and—yes—evil monster rumor labeled him.
The two spoke to each other in tones too low for her to hear. Most humans wouldn’t have noticed, but she had become accustomed to their ways. Then both stepped back.
Vincent shifted his grip and clung a moment to the front of Bastien’s coat, his face wet with tears. Much of the awful tension and agony his visage had reflected had left his body, leaving him more calm than she had seen him in months.
Perhaps if she spoke with Chris Reordon, more frequent visits with Bastien could be arranged. His presence seemed to help a great deal.
Bastien clasped the boy’s shoulders. His back was to Melanie, so she couldn’t see his expression.
Vincent gave him a weary smile full of heart-wrenching gratitude. “Thank you.”
Giving Vincent’s shoulders a last squeeze, Bastien let his hands fall to his sides and backed away a couple of steps. “Good-bye, my friend.”
Vincent’s smile grew.
Seeing the naked joy in his face, Melanie felt tears burn her eyes.
A heartbeat later, so swiftly she would have missed it had she blinked, Bastien drew his sword and swung it.
A scream burst from her lips as Vincent’s head left his shoulders and tumbled to the floor. His knees buckled, and the rest of him toppled down beside it.
Horror suffused her. A violent quaking overcame her limbs.
Bastien turned his back on Vincent.
Melanie opened her mouth to rage and shout and ask how he could’ve done that to a boy who had considered him a friend ... then paused.
The immortal’s eyes closed. An expression of such anguish contorted his handsome features. Such pain. His hand tightened on the handle of the sword, crushing it and cutting his palm. Blood drip-drip-dripped onto the metal guard, then slithered down the blade like a crimson snake.
His fingers uncurled, and he let the sword fall to the floor with a clatter.
A banging commenced down the hallway.
Bastien’s lids lifted. His glowing amber eyes glistened with moisture that made her own tears spill over her lashes as understanding burrowed its way past horror.
Vincent had asked him to do it, to end his misery and keep him from hurting or killing. Keep him from spending the rest of eternity as a raving lunatic obsessed with violent, twisted fantasies. Chained like a rabid dog.
The pounding continued, crescendoed as security forces crashed through the stairwell door.
Bastien didn’t run, didn’t brace for a fight. He just stared at her.
Melanie stood frozen in place, staring back as numbness, grief, and something akin to sympathy suffused her.
“Don’t tell them you called me,” he whispered hoarsely. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You don’t want to be linked to me in any way.”
“But—”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. I threatened you and forced you to open the door for me. You feared for your life.”
Boots thumped down the hallway. Many of them. Growing closer.
What would they do to him? To this immortal they despised who had harmed the guards because it was the only way he could reach his friend and fulfill his wishes?
She opened her mouth, but closed it without speaking when he shook his head, those luminous eyes boring into hers.
Bodies poured through the doorway behind her. Men in tactical gear buffeted her as they surged past and surrounded Bastien.
Melanie continued to hold his gaze until someone took her arm and dragged her away.
Marcus guided his new Hayabusa into the trees and cut the engine. Deciding he could use a break, he retrieved the meal Ami had prepared for him from the storage compartment under the seat.
The blood was warm despite the cold pack she had added. He sank his teeth in anyway and let his fangs draw it into his veins, replenishing what he had lost.
It had been a long night.
He grimaced at the stench that rose from his shirt. At least six individuals’ blood coated it, leaving it clinging to his skin. Four garages he had visited had each been surveilled by a single vampire. Two more had been watched by pairs.
All vamps had fought fiercely, leaving him no other choice but to kill them without extracting any valuable information.
A thought dawned.
His brunch bag in one hand, Marcus reached into the storage compartment again and shifted the small first aid kit aside. (The kit contained very little—butterfly closures and pressure tourniquet bandages—because immortals’ quick healing took care of most wounds.)
When he saw what lay in the bottom of the storage well, he grinned.
Ami rocked! As usual, she had foreseen his every need and provided him with a fresh shirt and some environmentally friendly, scentless wipes.
With great relief, Marcus removed his coat and yanked his shirt over his head. The wipes worked wonderfully, removing the sticky blood that streaked his chest, arms, neck, and face, whisking away the scents of death. A minute later, the soiled cloths were stowed away and, garbed in a fresh T-shirt, he dug into a tasty sandwich.
As usual, his thoughts returned to Ami, then strayed to the feel of those perfect curves locked against his earlier. Her body beneath him. Breasts to chest. Hips to hips.
How he had longed to kiss her. A brush of the lips. Just a test. Then firmer contact, coaxing her full lips apart, slipping his tongue within to taste and tempt. Strip away those tight jeans and that crop top one thread at a time, revealing—inch by inch—more pale, perfect skin that begged to be explored. Or better yet, rip the garments off with his teeth, then carry her to his big-ass bed.
Lost in the fantasy, Marcus grew hard and saw in the reflection of the Busa’s shiny finish his eyes begin to glow.
Not good. He wouldn’t be able to sneak up on the vampire lurking outside the garage five miles distant with his eyes heralding his approach like flashlights. And he would really rather not fight the vamp while sporting an erection.
Tucking away his brunch bag, Marcus closed his eyes.
Immortals were, in many ways, the complete opposite of vampires. While vampires had little or no control over their emotions and bodies, immortals like Marcus could work wonders. Usually. When images of a certain feisty redhead weren’t teasing him.
He shook his head. “Over eight centuries of living and I haven’t learned a bloody thing,” he muttered. “I still want what I can’t have.”
When he had finally brought his body back under control, he checked the direction of the chilly breeze and set off toward the next garage on his list.
Like some of the others, it was a small business on a country lot, the owners’ home only a few yards away. With the stealth of a cat, Marcus advanced from downwind, his nose and ears alerting him to the presence of
two
vampires, neither of whom showed any awareness of his approach.
two
vampires, neither of whom showed any awareness of his approach.
Marcus silently slid his short swords from their sheaths.
The cell phone in his pocket vibrated.
The vampires’ conversation ceased.
Sighing, Marcus straightened, sheathed one of the swords and answered the phone. “Yes?”
“Marcus, this is Sheldon, Richart d’Alençon’s Second.” Very young and very new to the job, according to the immortal grapevine.
“What can I do for you?”
The vampires beyond the trees began to exchange vehement whispers.
“I thought I should call and give you a heads-up that the vamps at the garages are all carrying cell phones that have a coordinator on speed dial who, if called, sends in reinforcements.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah. The last one Richart confronted heard him coming and sent the message before Richart could stop him. The next thing he knew, over half a dozen vamps converged on him.”
“In other words, stealth is imperative.”
“Absolutely.”
Marcus heard the faint sounds of a number being speed-dialed on a cell phone near the garage. “So, once one is within earshot of the vampires, conversing on a cell phone probably wouldn’t be a good idea,” he posed calmly.
“Exactly. I—” An audible gulp carried over the line. “Oh. Shit. I fucked up, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did. Take your mistake and learn from it.”
“I’m sorry. I just thought ...”
He hadn’t thought at all. That was the problem. But he would learn quickly through experience. They all did.
Except for Ami. Ami had kicked ass from the get-go.
“From now on,” Marcus advised the young man stammering apologies, “unless it’s an emergency and you can’t reach her, contact me through my Second.”
“Yes, sir. Do you ... Should I call Richart and tell him you need backup?”
“Hell no,” Marcus said, wondering if it might take this one a little longer than usual to learn the ropes. “If you do, you’re liable to land him in the same muck you have me. Good night.”
Sheldon sputtered something else as Marcus ended the call, but Marcus doubted it was important.
The harsh whispers ahead of him halted the moment Marcus put away his cell phone.
Shaking his head, he readied his weapons once more, then rocketed through the trees toward his prey.
Ami was monitoring the secure Immortal Guardians Web site for updates and information when that feeling of dread flooded her again, souring her stomach like an instant case of food poisoning.
Marcus was in trouble. The same feeling had driven her to speed to his side the night he had wrecked his Busa.
Already decked out in hunting togs with 9mm’s holstered on her thighs (Marcus didn’t know it, but she changed into such every night when he left the house so she would be prepared if he needed her), she grabbed her sheathed katanas and dove into the garage.
She and her Tesla Roadster flew through the night, veering in whatever direction the feeling guided her. She wasn’t sure why she felt it with Marcus. She had only ever felt it with family in the past. Even Seth, David, and Darnell—all of whom she now considered family—did not set her inner alarm system off when endangered.
Only Marcus.
Whipping down the winding, twisting roads, she passed the few other cars out and about as though they stood still. It helped that she had printed out the map of garages and gas stations Marcus would check tonight, all neatly concentrated in the same general area.
Wheels throwing gravel, she skidded to a halt about a hundred yards past the garage that had spawned the attack. Subdued sounds of battle met her ears as she threw open the door, leapt out, and darted into the trees.
Ami tucked her arms through the loops in the katanas’ sheath, letting them settle against the center of her back as she ran. Branches slapped her face and body, concealed by darkness until she was upon them. As she drew her 9mm’s, silencers already attached, she heard Marcus swear foully and guessed he had caught her scent.
“Get the human!” a male voice commanded, its owner screaming in pain a second later.
A large form sped toward her in a blur, bursting from the trees right in front of her.
Ami jerked to a halt and fired both weapons.
The form slowed and solidified into two vampires. Both stumbled as multiple bullets struck them.
Now that she could see them dimly, she hit their major arteries, then hurried past, giving them a wide berth.
There was no convenient clearing here. Just trees, trees, and more trees. Marcus appeared to be up against a dozen or so vampires, reduced to ten now that she had taken out two herself. The vamps who came after her next used the trees as shields whenever they could. Chunks of bark flew in every direction as she continued to fire, taking down a third.
Ami hadn’t had time to retrieve Darnell’s handy reloading tool from the trunk; so, when the clips emptied, she dropped the guns and drew her katanas. She had chosen the swords for their length, which had aided her greatly in the last vampire fray. Now, however, with so many trees limiting her swings, she did not fare as well.
This must be why Marcus and Roland preferred short swords and sais. Lesson learned.
Blood spattered her face and chest as her blades found purchase in soft vampire flesh. Without the car headlights that had lit up the last battlefield, she couldn’t tell exactly how many she faced. The foliage overhead blocked most of the moonlight. Were it not for their glowing eyes, she might not have seen her opponents at all.
Burning pain ripped through her right hamstring. Her leg buckling, Ami stumbled and lashed out with her sword. A howl of fury split the night as a vampire swam into focus and fell back, hands pressed to his femoral artery.
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