The Lair (43 page)

He opens the top drawer in the desk. Inside is a creepy array of instruments, the purpose for which I don’t even want to consider. There are knives and picks and saws. It’s like a full surgical supply cart. Along with a bundle of zip ties. He has my hands cuffed in front of me before I can even think past my horror at what I’ve seen in the drawer.

Then, he’s dragging me out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

“Let’s just go see what your friend is up to, shall we?”

I stumble after him, down the grand, curving staircase, my footsteps clattering across the marble of the entrance hall. He doesn’t stop until we’re out on the sweeping, wide front porch. We both look out over the town. Guards are scrambling in front of the courthouse. A pair of Hummers rumble by from the direction of the barracks. Other people, civilians, are pouring out onto the street to see what has happened. And then I see it.

On the other side of town, opposite from the gatehouse, a plume of inky smoke spirals into the sky. Only then do I realize that all the lights in town are out. There are streetlights all down Main Street. It was dusk when I went into Roberto’s house and the lights were just starting to come on. Now the sun has fully set and all of the lights are dark.

Whatever crashed must have gone right into the fence and knocked out the entire electrical grid. In the distance, far beyond the edge of town, I can hear the Ticks howling at the fence. Ticks that I led here. How long will it take for them to figure out that the fences are down? How long before the innocent people of this town are overrun by monsters that I let in? But I have no time to think about that.

Roberto hooks his fingers through the zip tie and drags me along behind him down the stairs and out into the street. His presence doesn’t go unnoticed. The people milling about stop to watch him with equal parts fear and awe. In this crowd, no one will come to my rescue. I am on my own.

He moves quickly down the street but I can’t keep up. I stumble and hit the ground hard on one knee. I cry out, but even that doesn’t stop him. He just drags me along behind him, my knees scraping the concrete. Finally he stops in the middle of the road and turns in place.

“Come out, come out wherever you are!”

He turns full circle. He’s waiting. For Sebastian.

He’s figured out Sebastian’s plan before I did. Of course Sebastian never intended for me to kill Roberto. How was I ever stupid enough to believe that he’d be content to let me kill his nemesis? He had hunted him for hundreds of years. He’s probably planned this for decades. He wasn’t going to just hand this over to me. As badly as I want Roberto dead, as badly as I want this all to end, it’s nothing compared to how Sebastian feels.

So of course I was nothing more than a decoy. A distraction. All this talk about how I was the only one who could do this, how I was the only one who could kill Roberto; that had all been lies. He even misled me about the vampire spidey sense, because clearly that is what I felt inside the house. That gut-deep need to kill Roberto. Or if I cannot kill him to flee his territory. That wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Certainly not so soon or so powerfully. Why had it come on so suddenly?

Then it hits me. Until yesterday I hadn’t been a real vampire. I had eaten, but not human blood. I had fed, but not killed. Somehow the act of taking a human life had made my transformation complete.

Sebastian had lied to and manipulated me at every turn. Was there any truth to anything he’d ever said?

And now, he’s out there, watching, waiting for the right moment to come and kill my enemy. I certainly hate Roberto. I hate what he’s done to the country, possibly to the world. I hate what he’s done to Lily and to me. My hatred is broad, but not deep. As many reasons as I have to hate Roberto, none of them feel personal. But Sebastian? I have a lot of reasons to hate him, too. Deeply personal reasons.

Roberto marches up and down the street, dragging me behind him. “I know you’re out there!”

Thankfully, he’s walking more slowly now and I can keep up.

“How many times are you going to send one of your little pets in to try to kill me?” he calls out.

Wait . . . Sebastian has done this before?

“When are you going to figure out that I will always—always!—win?” He whirls in another direction. “You can’t beat me! You just can’t.”

Across the street, I see Carter and my father dash out of the clinic only to stop on the steps when they see Roberto and me.

“For the first century or so, your pathetic assassination attempts were amusing. But I am not amused anymore. Come get your little pet”—Roberto jerks me forward and pulls me in front of him. He brings the wooden chair leg up to my neck—“before I take care of this problem myself.”

The jagged edge of the splintered wood bites into my flesh, but I feel strangely disconnected from my fear. Of course it doesn’t hurt that he’s ripped my shirt and it’s hanging open in tatters. I’m mostly covered, but I feel strangely vulnerable this way, partially naked and unable to hide myself. It’s the embarrassment that stings the most. The shame of failure.

This was supposed to be my big gesture on behalf of all humanity. My great act of defiance. Some assassin I turned out to be. I murdered an unarmed valet and got myself captured.

Maybe this is how it was meant to be. I wanted to play a part in bringing Roberto down. Maybe this is simply the part I get to play. The dupe. The fool. The victim.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Carter

I hadn’t really thought about what Roberto might look like until I saw him dragging Mel out into the center of town. The guy looked younger and more delicate than any of the Elites. Hell, he looked like half the Greens back at Base Camp could beat the crap out of him. Despite appearances, he’d somehow subdued and captured Mel. Which meant he had to be pretty badass. Typically speaking, you couldn’t pack that much badass into 130 pounds of scrawny kid without some serious supernatural help. Ergo, the twerp tossing Mel around like a sack of laundry had to be Roberto.

Still, I was surprised. When you think of an evil vampire overlord, you don’t automatically picture a guy who could be a member of One Direction.

Frankly, I didn’t care who he was; I wasn’t about to let him get away with using Mel as some kind of bargaining chip. But how the hell could I get her out of there?

I glanced at Price first. This was his daughter. Yeah, he’d skipped out on them years ago, but hadn’t he just said he’d done this all for them? Surely he’d step up to save her.

But he just stood there, an expression of bemusement on his face.

“Do something,” I said, grabbing his shoulder and pushing him forward. “She’s your daughter. Help her!”

“That can’t be Mel.”

I fought the urge to slap Price upside the head. What was wrong with him? His daughter was in trouble—like, about to be staked through the heart in trouble—and he didn’t seem to be able to process that at all.

Then it hit me. He didn’t know what she’d become.

Besides which, other than that brief meeting at the clinic, he hadn’t seen her in years. In his mind, Mel was still the barely functioning ten-year-old he’d abandoned.

Now, he couldn’t reconcile that image with the one before him. This Mel had clearly overpowered a guard, cut off her own hair to complete the ruse, and done her damnedest to kill Roberto. The fact that she hadn’t succeeded didn’t diminish the fact that she’d tried. Price literally couldn’t believe his eyes.

Great, the one man who might actually be able to help her had been struck dumb.

Which left only me to help.

I pushed past Price to walk down the steps. There were still lots of civilians milling around. They couldn’t seem to figure out what to do. They were probably so used to taking direction from Price and Roberto that they couldn’t think for themselves anymore. Or maybe they couldn’t think past Price’s confusion.

Of course, all the people on this compound had thrown in with Roberto for whatever reason. I didn’t particularly have a lot of sympathy for them, but that didn’t mean I thought they deserved to die. Especially since there were families here. People with kids.

I turned back to Jonathan, grabbed him by the shoulders, and gave him a shake. “Get it together. If you can’t stand up to Roberto, fine. But at least get these people out of here.”

He looked at me a little blankly. “Who?”

“These people! They’re just standing around. Waiting for you to tell them what to do. Don’t you get it? There are no lights on, so that means the electricity is out. No electricity means no fences, and that the Ticks can get in. Say something to them. You want to be this great leader? Be it now.”

But he shook his head, scoffing. “The Ticks won’t get in.”

That’s when I stopped trying to get through to him. He was obviously so out of touch he had no idea what they were dealing with. I did. The Ticks would get in and they’d eat their way through this town in a matter of hours. Sure, maybe some of these people had the vaccine. Maybe most of them did. But the vaccine only protected you from being turned into a Tick. It wouldn’t do jack to protect you from having your heart ripped out.

I turned to the crowd and yelled, “The fences are down! The Ticks will get through. You’re all in danger! Get your families inside. Arm yourselves with whatever you have and don’t come out until well after dawn!” The people on the street looked from me to Jonathan and then to Roberto, where he stood with Mel. “They aren’t going to save you! You have to save yourselves!” A murmur of disbelief and fear rippled through the crowd. “Go!”

I wanted to roar with anger. With frustration. These people had put their faith in the wrong people. They’d blindly trusted Price and Roberto to protect them. They’d thought they could pretend the rest of the world hadn’t gone to hell outside their gates. They were wrong.

And it was this man’s fault.

I whirled back to Jonathan Price. An
abductura
powerful enough to sway the emotions of nearly everyone in the entire state—at least. But too damn concerned with his own glory to save anyone. Not even his own daughter.

I hauled off and punched him. Not just once. I pounded him. He stumbled back, tripping over the steps to land hard on his ass. He cowered before me, arms raised to protect his head. “No!” he cried.

The anger roiling inside of me didn’t let up. I wanted to destroy. I wanted to beat him to pulp. To slam his head against the steps. Anything to break the influence he had over these defenseless lambs who were about to be slaughtered by the Ticks.

Except suddenly they didn’t seem defenseless anymore. The crowd was scrambling away, scattering into buildings and houses, calling out their loved ones’ names and crying for help.

Chaos hit the square hard and fast. In the distance, the Ticks howled as if in response to the panic flooding through the people in town.

Price still cowered before me, but I turned my back on him and walked down the steps to where Roberto stood in the center of the square, Mel still in his grasp.

“Let her go,” I ordered.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d do it, but hell, I had to start somewhere.

Roberto just stared at me, his head cocked to the side, his expression vaguely baffled. “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to plunge a stake through your heart.”

There was a brief second of shock in Roberto’s expression. Then, slowly, he smiled. He tipped his head back and released a peal of crazed laughter.

It was the kind of cackle that would grate on anyone’s nerves, but Mel seemed to flinch away from it. As if the noise was actually repugnant to her. Maybe it was.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Roberto murmured as his laughter died away. “You must be Carter.”

That stopped me. I hadn’t expected him to even know I existed. I’d thought the rebellion had stayed under his radar. Unsure what to say without giving anything else away, I said nothing.

That didn’t seem to be a problem. Roberto was clearly the kind of guy who was vain enough that he didn’t mind carrying the conversation.

“Ely was right about you.”

Ely. Right. My favorite traitor. That’s who had told Roberto about me.

“He said you were good. Why, for a moment there, I almost believed you myself. You, a mere human boy are going to stab me through the heart.” He gave an exaggerated shiver of fear. “Scary stuff.” He let loose another peal of laughter. “Absolutely terrifying.”

I ignored his monologue. Frankly, I didn’t have the time to listen.

I hadn’t been lying to all those people about the Ticks making it through the fences. They would make it through. It was possible whatever aircraft had gone down had smashed right through the fence. In which case, they’d be here sooner rather than later.

Sure, I figured that plane going down had something to do with Sebastian, but I wasn’t going to wait around for his help. I couldn’t assume he’d intended to crash the plane or that he’d gotten out of it in time. I was the one who had to get us out of this. I had to get Roberto to release Mel, I had to find Lily, and then get the hell out of here. And pray there was still a Hummer left to steal, because I didn’t think the Mazda had much gas left. And I had to do it all before the Ticks came streaming through town.

First up, I had to convince Roberto to let Mel go. I decided to change tactics. Clearly the whole threatening him thing wasn’t working. Tipping him over the edge into crazy, maybe. Working in my favor, not so much.

I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, we’re all reasonable. This city is under attack. Let’s call a truce and fight off the Ticks.”

“Why would I need a truce? The Ticks can’t harm me. They’re an annoyance. One that I will deal with when I see fit. Sebastian, on the other hand, is an annoyance whose time has come.” Roberto tipped his head back and yelled, “Se-bas-tian!” He drew out every syllable like they were separate words. “I believe your little assassin and your
abductura
are waiting for you.”

What the hell? Sebastian’s
abductura
?

Did Roberto know something we didn’t know? Had Mel retained her powers after all?