Blood and Kisses (9 page)

Ursula’s smile slipped. Her tone became more business-like. She folded her hands. “Certainly. I don’t usually contact people I knew in life, so before we try, you’re aware we might not able to reach either victim? There’s no telling who might come through.”

Thalia nodded.

Ursula nodded back. “And even if we do get someone pertinent, there’s no guarantee they’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Thalia nodded again, anxious to begin.

“Very well.” Ursula took a deep, cleansing breath and closed her catlike eyes. She placed her hands palm upward on her knees yoga fashion. Thalia rolled her eyes. Ursula was a gifted psychic, but she tended toward the melodramatic.

The ticking of kitchen clock grew louder and louder in the silence. Finally, Ursula spoke. “I’m getting a young woman about your age. I think it’s Lily. She is showing me...” Ursula licked her red lips and began to breathe heavily. Her head rolled back to expose the vulnerable hollow of her throat. Her heart was beating so fiercely Thalia could see the pulse throbbing in her neck. Ursula laid one manicured hand on her damp forehead. “She’s showing me a handsome dark-haired man. I don’t recognize him. He meets her outside the B.B. and C. She’s unable to resist him. She doesn’t want to resist him. Oh.” Ursula shuddered. Her painted eyelids fluttered and she placed a hand to her throat. “The pleasure. I...” Her face flushed and she sucked in a deep breath, visibly struggling to maintain her composure. She came back to herself and opened her eyes, revealing widely dilated pupils. “I’m sorry. I’ve never been drawn in that way. Usually, all I get is pictures and impressions.” She fanned herself and settled back to try again, resuming her former posture. “Now I’m getting a picture of another woman. Lily is stepping back and bringing your mother through.”

Thalia caught her breath. “My mother?” Her eyes went to Gideon. He met her gaze without expression, the lines of his face giving no clue to his thoughts.

Ursula continued after a tiny pause, as if listening. “She’s asking me to warn you. Something about a prophecy? Does that make sense?”

Thalia scanned her memory. Prophecy? She shook her head. The world of magic was full of future portents, predictions, prophecies and omens, but her mother had never mentioned any specific prophecy. Then she remembered her mother’s final words. Was this prophecy the reason her mother had wanted her to seek out Gideon?

Ursula gave a sudden wheeze of surprise and her body stiffened. “Thalia?” The voice emanating from Ursula was low and mature, clearly not hers, and both familiar and infinitely precious to Thalia.

“Mom?” Thalia’s voice was little more than a whisper.

“I don’t have much time. I’m taking too much energy from this body,” her mother said. “Go to my book. You’ll find the prophecy there. You’re in grave danger. Keep Gideon with you, and don’t forget to rely on Spirit. Most of all, believe in yourself. Remember we love you.” Her mother’s tender voice faded, Ursula’s face grew slack, and Thalia knew her mother was gone.

Tears stung her eyes. It was too much and far too little. There was so much more she wanted to know. To bathe in the warmth of her mother’s presence for such a brief moment in time, only to have her slip away before she could absorb the reality of it, was like losing her all over again.

Ursula slumped, a marionette discarded by an absent puppeteer. She raised her other hand slowly to her head, and Thalia could tell the other woman fought a headache. “That’s never happened before.” Beneath her light film of make-up, her face was paper-white. “And I hope it never happens again.”

Thalia stood. “I’m so sorry.”

Ursula waved away her apology with a weak hand and shook her head. “Despite what you see in the movies, that never happens. It’s clear that whatever is going on is more than just a simple rogue vampire. I got a feeling of intense dread, a sense of foreboding so deep it made it hard to breathe. We’re all in great danger. As for me, I think for the time being, I’ll stay away from the Bell, Book, and Candle.”

Kill them now. So much anger and hatred wracked his body, he was surprised the Butcher couldn’t sense it. Gods, he wanted to end it, to see his enemy broken and destroyed.

He could do it now. It would be so easy to kill them. Gideon was so obsessed with fighting his attraction to the little witch, no doubt he could have stood before him in his true form and the Butcher wouldn’t bat an eye. The aching, burning sensation began in his fingertips as claws transformed his fingernails. He hid his hands behind his back and took a breath, mastering his rage.

No. Killing them now would ruin everything. He had to keep to the plan.

He escorted them out the door and watched as they sped away. There was no need to follow. He knew where they were going. He’d planned a little welcome home party for the witch. Soon, he promised himself, soon.

Gideon pressed his lips into a grim line as he tore into Thalia’s narrow driveway, and braked, the car’s front tires spitting loose stones. “Get the book and pack some more things.” This whole situation just kept getting better and better.

Thalia’s soft mouth opened and closed without a sound. She studied him for a moment, raking him with worried eyes, then nodded and disappeared into the house.

He drilled the steering wheel with his fingers as he waited. How could he protect her? He’d already proven he couldn’t be trusted around her.

But who was he to argue with the other side?

Is that the reason you want her near, the monster scoffed, to protect her?

He remembered again the feel of her body against his. The pliant softness of her breasts against the wall of his chest, the heat of her mouth. He felt himself harden and the exquisite pain of his fangs extending.

His senses narrowed and the sounds of the summer night, frogs and crickets calling to others of their kind, the distant bark of a dog, the warm breeze stirring the leaves on the trees, faded into the background, and the throb of Thalia’s heartbeat became his world. His eyelids lowered over glowing eyes as the soft sound of her blood pumping through her veins while she moved about the house sang through him, a siren song to the monster within.

He wrestled the demon for control. Behind closed eyelids, he focused on the techniques he had learned over the years, tearing his attention away from the sweet lure of Thalia’s pulse and onto the gruesome images of his last day as a human.

Blank dead eyes staring sightlessly. Screams of anguish, moans of pain. The loathsome, repulsive stench of death.

He could never forget the destruction he had wreaked that day, and the price. He would never go back to that dark and deadly place.

His breathing slowed. Insulated by his memories, he allowed himself to check Thalia’s progress and froze. No longer focused on the lure of Thalia’s heartbeat, he heard something that made his own heart stutter in his chest.

Thalia and Spirit weren’t alone.

Thalia stuffed a T-shirt into her suitcase, turned to get her robe from the bathroom and froze. There, reflected in the bathroom mirror, she saw a strange man and woman. Heart spasming with fear, she spun around to face them.

At first glance, they looked like Ken and Barbie. They were young and attractive, wearing business suits and dress shoes. The man sported an expensive watch, the woman, fine gold jewelry at her ears, fingers, and throat. But a closer look revealed crazed eyes, disheveled hair, and bloodstains on their clothing. The pair hissed, exposing pointed fangs dripping with saliva, and attacked.

Before Thalia could react, a black blur streaked like a whirlwind into the room, knocking the intruders to the floor. The shape coalesced. Gideon.

The strangers were already off the floor. Gideon dodged the woman, who stumbled against the wall. He grabbed the man by the throat, lifting him off the ground. The air filled with the man’s desperate choking.

“Run,” Gideon ordered as the woman steadied herself and lunged at Thalia.

Thalia threw up her hands, swiftly muttering the words of a spell. Blue light flashed, and the woman stiffened and fell like a log, her body no longer under her control.

The male intruder clawed at Gideon’s hands and kicked out with his feet. His face purpled, and his coughs grew fainter.

Gideon’s face was frightening in its grim intensity. Thalia put a hand on his arm. Snarling, he turned blazing red eyes in her direction. She swallowed, but didn’t let go. “Don’t kill him. We need them.”

The scarlet glow in his eyes began to wane until only ebony remained. He nodded and released the man who reeled back and dropped to all fours, retching on the hardwood floor.

“Do you think they killed Lily?”

Gideon shook his head. “They’re puppets, like the revenant that attacked us before. True vampires wouldn’t have been able to enter without an invitation. Your wards are potent. Their master must be incredibly powerful.”

“What’s going on?” Spirit stood in the doorway.

“Where have you been?” Gideon faced Thalia’s familiar, his back to the bathroom.

The sound of breaking class told him he’d made a big mistake.

Gideon dashed through the bathroom door, but he was too late. The vampire’s minions had leaped through the thin glass of the tall old window and disappeared into the night.

He swore and slammed the side of his fist against the sturdy wooden window frame. There was no way he could risk going after them and leaving Thalia alone.

He felt her come up behind him. “They’re gone.”

She braced her hand on the frame and lifted her leg to climb through. “Don’t just stand there. Let’s go after them.”

Gideon gripped her wrist. She hesitated, turning her blue eyes toward him questioningly.

“You couldn’t keep up,” he said gently. “And I’m not leaving you behind. It could be a trap.”

Thalia sighed and lowered her leg.

While she finished packing, Gideon kept watch at the window, anger still surging through him. How could he have been so lax? He had failed to detect their presence until it was almost too late.

“I’m ready.” Thalia held up her small suitcase in the bathroom doorway. “What should we do about the window?”

“I can still feel your wards. They should keep out any average housebreaker. Do you have duct tape and plastic garbage bags?”

She nodded and went to get the items.

After sealing the window, they went out to the car. Gideon opened the passenger side door and, leaving it ajar, went around and slipped into the driver’s seat. Spirit bounded onto the passenger seat and then into the backseat. Thalia placed her small, soft-sided suitcase on the floor mat in the back, slid into the seat and fastened her seatbelt.

Thalia, Spirit said. Did you look closely at this picture?

Gideon looked over the seat to see what Spirit was talking about. The familiar was indicating the newspaper Gideon had thrown on the backseat earlier in the evening.

Thalia released her seatbelt and leaned between the seats. She had changed, and her orange T-shirt rode up exposing the smooth, creamy skin of her hip. Gideon looked away.

“Gideon. I knew this woman.” She handed the newspaper to him, folded so he could see the picture of a dark-haired woman about Thalia’s age, grinning at the camera. How many innocent faces had he seen over the millennia? They came and went like shooting stars. Their lives were so short it should be easy to brush away the injustice of their violent passings. Instead they burned into his memory.