Afterglow (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #2) (5 page)

“
I was supposed to shave them with that Pedi-Egg thing you gave each of us?”

“
Yes. I know the bits of skin are gross, but look at my palms,” she said.

I ran my hand over them. “Smooth. Soft.”

“That’s right. All of my parkour callouses are shaved flat with my palms so they don’t catch and tear the more tender skin next to the callouses.”

“
I knew that. I just haven’t been keeping up with the regimen.”

“
It could save your life to have your hands in shape for parkour.”

I nodded. “I’ll take skin care more seriously,” I promised.

“If you don’t, I’m going to make you watch a training video on parkour hand care. Ten times.”

“
Can’t have that,” I teased.

“
All right, you are off all hand use in parkour for a couple of days until your hands are in better shape,” she said. “Will you get some gloves on and coach the climbing wall?” she asked. It was the first time she assigned me a responsibility like that during parkour training.

“
Sure,” I said, and moved to the two-story climbing wall. I spotted for Nariko, our resident tiny clothing designer and stealthy vampire hunter, who was four foot something and about ninety pounds. She had very little upper body strength, but her legs were like bands of steel due to her addiction to a stair-climber machine. I hated that thing, but she loved it and was always hogging it in the gym while she listened to hip-hop.

“
Use the power of your legs and swing them so you can reach the next handhold,” I urged her.

“
I’m too little,” she said. “I can’t do it like Ambra. She’s tall.”

“
What’s the first rule of parkour?”

“
Know your strengths and your limitations.”

“
Good. And what’s the second rule?” I asked her.

“
Push your strengths and limitations.”

“
Right. Remember, we train to the best of our abilities, as individuals. We aren’t after competing with each other, but seeking our own personal bests.”

“
Okay,” Nariko said.

“
Just remember, you can make us all groan in hot yoga.”

“
True,” she said and giggled. “That’s my kind of exercise.”

“
Okay. No laughing now because you need your laughing muscles for climbing,” I said. “Visualize the vampires chasing you.”

“
Ack!” She swung her legs hard to climb higher and accidentally fell. I caught her before she hit the mat. She hardly weighed anything. We rolled together on the big bouncy mat and when we stopped rolling, I let her go.

“
You all right, Nariko?” I asked her as she stood.

“
Yeah. I’m just frustrated that I can’t make my hands grip the big pegs.”

“
Where’s your fingerless climbing gloves that you made?”

“
Oh, yeah,” she said and took them out of her jacket pocket. “Duh!” She put them on. And then she attacked the pegs on the wall and climbed up them easily, just like a little spider in a black leotard. I cheered her on and when she got to the top and went over, I changed sides and watched her come down the other side of the climbing wall, which was way easier than going up.

“
Keep running!” I said, when she let herself down on the mat. “Always stay in motion and think about not just one movement ahead, but two movements ahead.”

She nodded and vaulted over a wide, low padded wall and then did a bounce off the trampoline and a tuck and roll when she landed. She immediately rose to her feet like a gymnast at the Olympics. She was cuter than any vampire hunter had a right to be.

“I’m doing it!” she said, with a sheen of sweat on her face. “I’m finally doing it!”

“
Go, Nariko!” I said and clapped once. I think it was the first time she had done such tough obstacles without stopping to consider what her next move would be.

“
What’s the key?” I asked her.

“
Always plan two movements ahead.”

“
You got it, vampire hunter girl.”

“
I know!” she said, her face beaming. Not bad for a fashion designer and such a tiny gal.

We high-fived each other.

At that moment, when everyone had completed the obstacle course and we all flopped to the mats with towels and high-fives, glugging sports drinks and bragging, the big monitor on the wall came on and Gabrielle’s face was on it.

“
Hi, guys!” she said, her face inside of the Skype window.

Lucas activated Skype on our side. “How you doing, Gabrielle?”

“I’m hungry,” she said. “As always.”

“
Okay,” Daphne said. “We’ll get you some pig’s blood.”

“
Is Wilbur still okay with this?” Gabrielle asked.

Daphne replied, “We have him trained now so that when he sees us coming with the needle, he lies down and waits for the treat that he gets at the end. This week, the treats are bags of broken cookies from a factory in Zürich.”

“Hey, I like broken cookies, too!” I said.

“
Sorry, they’re for the pig,” Daphne said.

“
I’ve been known to be a pig,” I said, and everyone laughed. My metabolism was much envied in our group. I ate mass quantities of food, mostly protein, and used it to build muscle, as did Ambra, that skiing, parkouring, vampire-hunting bad-ass ex-stuntwoman who would have probably scared the shit out of me if I didn’t love her so much. And
trust
her so much.

“
I have some other news for you,” Gabrielle said, her vampire eyes shining with a strange expression.

“
What’s your news, Gabby?” Lucas asked.

“
I’ve finished composing
Vampiress of the Opera
. I want to perform it for you all, about an hour before sunrise. In the great hall. Like you promised I could.”

Dread and foreboding pitched around all of that melted cheese that lay in my belly like an anchor.

I took a break from working out and ran up to my room and turned on my laptop. I saw that Samantha Moon was logged into Skype. I contacted her and soon, we were looking at each other’s faces. I could hear Sam’s TV on low volume. Judge Judy was in the background, ripping someone a new one for being an idiot and a liar.

“What’s up, Rand? Something wrong?” Sam’s voice was clear and strong. She was dressed in a silky-looking purple caftan, as if she hadn’t yet gotten dressed for the day.

“
Yeah. Remember how I told you about Gabrielle’s vampire opera?”

“
Yes?”

“
Well, she finished composing it and she wants to come upstairs and perform it for everyone. Be let loose from the bunker.”

“
Oh, no. Under no circumstances can you let this night’s entertainment proceed. I can assure you that it will come to no good end.”

“
I was afraid you would say that,” I said. “Any new information on my daughter?”

“
I’m chasing down a lead in Griffith Park. I mean, I don’t think she is there, but there is a vampire nest and I’m sniffing around without letting them know I exist. I think they have ties to the old ones you want. The big bat rides again.”

“
Wow, thanks, Sam.”

“
You’re welcome. I hope to have some intel to you in the next couple of weeks.”

“
Wow! Can I help?” I asked.

“
Just sit tight. I am working the case from California and beyond. We’ll find Kristin, I promise.”

“
I want to come to Southern California and work that case with you.”

“
No. Don’t come, Rand. I work alone.”

“
I used to know that feeling. The nights are long, aren’t they, Sam?”

“
It feels like one endless night, ever since I became a vampire.”

“
Sorry.”

“
Don’t be. It’s still a good life, or unlife. I have my kids.”

“
I want my child, too.”

“
First, you better stop them from letting Gabby loose to sing her swan song.”

I nodded, wishing I could see Sam better than the blurry image that picked up on the makeup on her face, but not really much of her facial features. In person, she was stunning. On Skype, not so much.

“Thanks, Sam.”

We ended the Skype session and I went down the stairs, back to the workout.

Chapter Five

I got my second wind and I decided to use it. I paced Lucas on the soft-surface indoor running track.

“
Where’d you go?” he asked.

“
Skyped with Samantha Moon. She says we need to cancel the concert. She says something is going to happen if we let Gabby come upstairs and sing for us.”

“
I know it will, Rand.”

I gasped a bit and he ran faster, as if avoiding the issue. I easily kept up with him. “Explain, Lucas.”

“Gabby is now working counterintelligence for us. She had a breakthrough in therapy with Griff. She’s on our side.”

“
Oh, thank God.”

“
Well, don’t be too relieved. She said that she’s going to give us Vlad tonight.”

“
What? How?”

“
I’m not at liberty to say.”

“
Oh, come on!” I blasted. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

Lucas stopped in his tracks. “Gabby is going to lure him here with her singing and somehow she is connected to him and he will hear her and come. That’s what she says.”

“What the hell? If that’s true, we need to get ready and stop horsing around in the gym.”

“
No, we are ready. And we have to do normal things and not make it look like we are setting a trap or getting defense ready for an attack.”

“
This is sheer madness.”

Lucas started running again. “She says he can read her mind from far away. So act normal around her.”

After running three miles on the indoor track, a fencing session with foils, taught by Joan, who really knew her stuff and was back up to speed after her bout with breast cancer, we did run-stabs at the cloth dummies with our vampire hunter weapons. Then we had dart-throwing practice led by me during the cool-down and some after-workout hot yoga led by Nariko.

I thought we were going to be done for the day but we got our third winds after a juice break and some Power bars. Ambra challenged me to a sparring session. She kicked my ass in a short session of kickboxing.

She said it was because of the skiing she did almost every day, in season, and encouraged me to join her and Corbin the werewolf on their daily regimen of skiing crazily across country and downhill, too. She claimed I didn’t get enough fresh air and was avoiding going outside because I was a Southern Californian living in the Alps in winter. That was true. I loved the scenery, but loathed the cold.

In any case, I felt pummeled by the training and was happy to hear that we all had tomorrow off for R&R.

Today’s training had felt like I was back in Navy Seals Hell Week, but without the sleep deprivation, which was good, because I was going to need that shuteye tonight. Even if a certain beautiful vampire hunter showed up in my room tonight, naked—like that would ever happen—I would need sleep first. My body was spent. Spent.
Spent!

Finally, it was time to hit the shower and get in some nicer clothes for Gabby’s concert.

It was about an hour until sunrise and I was just beat. I really wanted to take a sauna and a nap, but I was afraid I would end up taking a nap in the sauna, which could be fatal. A shower would have to be enough.

Even though I was dragging ass, I came downstairs in my black cashmere turtleneck, black wool trousers, and my vampire hunter boots with my blade in the right one, and my darts in my left one. Always armed. Unless I was swimming or showering, that’s the way I rolled.

I arranged our chairs in the great hall and lighted the tapers on several candelabras to set the mood for Gabby’s opera concert.

Even after working out, Nariko was bouncing around in her usual Energizer Bunny mode, helping me to arrange a simple stage set that Gabby had specified—a green velvet chaise and Tiffany lamps on each side. I draped rich red satin fabric over the chaise, so that it looked like an artist’s set for a painting model. I put a white satin pillow at the head of it. Mikhail and I set up a microphone and a video camera on a tripod. We did a couple of sound tests. Finally, we were ready.