Blood Born (46 page)

He couldn’t believe the guy still wanted to eat. As far
as he was concerned, he never wanted to see a barbecue sandwich again for the rest of his life. The chopped meat reminded him too much of how the vampire had looked when he’d shot out part of her chest.

“Get in the car,” he said to Rurik as he put the shotgun in the backseat and walked back to the convenience store. He opened the door, plastered a smile on his face as he stuck his head inside. “Please tell me you didn’t see the cameras. We wanted your expressions to be genuine. Hope we didn’t scare anyone too bad. Wasn’t that great? The producer is going to be here in just a few minutes. He’ll want signed permissions from all of you, if you want your likenesses to appear in the video game.” He wondered if any of them could see past the act, if maybe those closest could hear his heart hammering.

“Where’s the woman’s body?” one lady shouted hysterically. “Oh my God, she just
exploded
!”

“It’s all special effects these days,” Jimmy said, keeping that idiotic grin in place.

“I saw …” a man began, but stopped and didn’t say anything else. What could he say? There was no body, just a limp pile of clothes and some ash. And who in their right mind would believe for a moment that what they’d witnessed was real? He had a hard time believing it himself.

The clerk spoke into the phone, “Never mind,” and disconnected his call to turn his attention to Jimmy. “I’m not giving any permission without some cash upfront.”

“Sure,” Jimmy said, trying to sound reasonable when what he wanted to do was turn and run like hell. If he made it to D.C. without having a heart attack, it would be a miracle. “I don’t have the power to make any deals on my own, but the producer will be here in ten minutes, tops. My cousin and I have to get out of here so
we can make the next shot before we lose the light. It’s, like, way down the road, so we’ve gotta run.” He gave a wave, turned, and stepped over what was left of the vampire, which wasn’t much: some bloody clothes, a partially shredded hat, and dust. The dust was scattering in the summer breeze.

Sunlight flashed on something metallic, catching his eye. The edge of a cell phone stuck about an inch out of a bloody pocket. Without thinking he leaned down and carefully plucked the dust-covered, bloodstained phone from the pocket. With it caught between two fingers, Jimmy gratefully plopped into the driver’s seat and dropped the phone in the console between the front seats.

Rurik indicated the cell. “Why did you take that?”

“This is war, right? One of the aspects of war is the collection of information. Want to know who that freak’s been talking to? This is how we find out.” If he could ever bring himself to touch the damn thing, that is.

Jimmy glanced at his passenger. Rurik hadn’t escaped the skirmish unscathed. His jaw was red, and would probably be bruised before too much longer. The vampire had scratched his throat when she’d grabbed it, though a scratch was far from the fatal wound she’d obviously planned to inflict. The plain brown shirt was splattered with blood. His clothes weren’t soaked, not like the vampire’s had been, and it was difficult to tell that those streaks were actually red against that dark brown, but still … gross. There was a lot of blood loss involved in shotgun blasts and severing a head. Who knew?

As he cranked the engine, Rurik nodded curtly. “You are very clever, but you are not skilled enough with a shotgun to be of much use in a battle with vampires.”

Jimmy’s first thought was
Thank God, maybe I’ll get out of this alive after all
.

And then Rurik continued. “We must get you a proper sword.”

    It was after dark when they checked out of the hotel. They’d checked in too early and left too early, and had ended up paying for two days when they hadn’t even been there twenty-four hours. It didn’t seem fair to Chloe, but in the scheme of things an inflated hotel bill wasn’t worth obsessing over. She had more important things to obsess about.

Luca drove directly to a rental car lot, dropped off the minivan, and leased a gray sedan that looked pretty much like every other car they’d passed on the road. It was completely forgettable, which was probably why he’d chosen it. For a moment, Chloe wondered if he’d glamoured the girl behind the desk, or made some kind of excuse for trading in a perfectly good van that had been rented just last night. But that thought was quickly followed by a “duh.” No explanations or vampire tricks were necessary when he wasn’t going to be remembered.

“Where to now?” she asked as he pulled onto the road, breathing a sigh of relief when she realized that he was driving away from the rebel vampire headquarters.

Luca had been quiet since she’d awakened to find him all but ready to go. He’d given her time to take a shower, but had made it clear that he was in a hurry. He was driven, and thanks to their bonding she knew how strong that drive was. Now he glanced at her and said, “We have a stop to make, before we attack.”

So much for her relief. “Attack? Just the two of us?”

“I hope not. While you were sleeping I made a few calls, pulled in some friends. They’re trustworthy.”

Chloe gulped. Great. Her life—heck, the fate of the world—was in the hands of
trustworthy
vampires. “We
can’t … wait a few days to see who shows up? Maybe give it some thinking time and come up with a battle plan?”

“No, we have to do it now,” Luca said, his voice emotionless, but she could feel his agitation. That wasn’t like him. Luca was normally icy calm.

“Why?”

He hesitated a moment, then his jaw hardened. “I don’t know. I’ve learned to trust my gut instincts over the years, and my gut is telling me that we can’t wait.”

Okay. Battle time, then. That changed things. She didn’t want to be separated from him, but she was practical enough to know that in a fight she’d be more of a hindrance than an ally. She’d distract Luca, take his mind away from the enemy. He’d be so focused on protecting her, he might make a mistake—and end up paying for that mistake with his life. She couldn’t bear it if that happened, if she lost him because he was focused on her instead of on what he was doing.

“Take me home,” she said, her voice smaller than she’d intended.

“No.”

“Think about it,” she pleaded. “I’m safe there. No vampire can come into my home uninvited. I know you’re worried that I’ll do something foolish, but I swear, even if they bring my mother to the door I won’t go outside or invite them in.”

“Yeah, I’ll buy that,” Luca responded, rolling his eyes.

Chloe crossed her arms. “There’s no need for sarcasm.”

He drove fast, when he could. If anyone else had been behind the wheel she’d have been panicking, but if ever anyone was in control, it was him. She trusted him implicitly.

“I have to tell you something,” he said.

That didn’t sound good. A chill ran down her spine because he sounded so serious. If Luca was worried, she should definitely be worried, too.

“There’s another reason I can’t take you home and leave you there. Ahron mentioned the rebels breaking a spell. I don’t know if you realized what he was talking about or not, but the spell in question is the sanctuary spell that keeps a human’s home safe from the kindred.”

She hadn’t thought the situation could get any worse … yet there it was. Worse. “Can they do that?”

“Ahron seemed to think so, and that’s enough to concern me. They must have a witch on their side.”

Witch?
What next? Werewolves and goblins? That settled it, though; she didn’t want to go home.

They crossed the Virginia state line.

    The storage facility was an ordinary collection of metal units, like thousands of them all over the country. Luca had rented this space for the past twelve years. Before that, he’d leased a smaller unit in a different town, but over the years his collection had grown and he’d had to get this larger space.

He unlocked the metal door, guided Chloe inside, and flipped the light switch.

At first glance, the unit was as ordinary on the inside as it was on the outside, but the wooden crates and metal lockers that lined the walls were filled with weapons, any weapon he might possibly need in his line of work—or for a war.

He opened one wooden crate and drew out a broadsword that was wrapped in oilcloth, to keep the blade from rusting. When he carefully unwrapped it, Chloe gasped.

“Holy cow,” she muttered. “Is that thing as sharp as it looks?”

“Yes, it is.” He could take on three unarmed vampires
with his hands alone, but considering how many rebels he’d have to face tonight he’d need every advantage he could get.

He reached past another, lighter sword and grabbed the short-bladed weapon he had thought of for Chloe. He’d be with her all the way; he’d do his best to keep the rebels away from her, but it would be foolish not to arm her. He placed her sword beside his own and moved to a metal locker. For several minutes, he went from locker to locker, from shelf to shelf. For himself, he chose a modified shotgun and two high-caliber handguns, along with enough ammunition to take on an army.

Arming Chloe was a bit more complicated.

“Have you ever handled a gun?” he asked, turning to face her.

“No. I’m sorry,” she said helplessly, knowing she was a liability to him.

Too bad. A couple of shots to the heart or the brain with a powerful enough weapon would drop most vampires in their tracks, but the target was small, and even a half-inch off target meant an angry, wounded vampire was coming after you. There wasn’t time for shooting lessons; he had other weapons with which she could defend herself.

He hoped she wouldn’t need them. The only way any vampire would get to her was if he was dead.

    It was a long way from Texas to D.C. by car, with an armed and still slightly bloody warrior sitting in the passenger seat, getting more impatient with every passing hour.

He drove fast but steady, eating up the miles, but Jimmy wasn’t exactly sure what they were closer to. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more than he already did.

The vampire’s cell phone began singing Elvis’s
“Hound Dog.” He jumped, and the car swerved into the left lane, earning him an angry blast from the horn of a pickup truck.

Rurik simply stared at the cell, lying in the console. As they’d been driving through Tennessee the Warrior had studied the cell. He’d even cleaned it up a bit, using the leftover napkins from their sack of sandwiches to wipe away most of the blood and dust. But he didn’t touch the phone now, he simply glared at it. Jimmy grabbed the cell, glancing at the name and number that came up on the screen.

Sorin. That was one of the names the vampire had entered into her address book. The call was from a D.C. number, judging by the area code. Jimmy didn’t want to listen to the phone ring anymore, and he sure as hell didn’t want to talk to anyone the vampire who’d murdered his father might have in her address book. He hit the “fuck you” button to reject the call, and dropped it back into the console. Maybe he should turn it off, but it might be a good idea to know who was trying to call the dead bitch.

“I like this world, very much,” Rurik said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, so do I,” Jimmy responded.

“It is worth saving.”

A chill ran down Jimmy’s spine. It was so easy to get caught up in his own little world, his insignificant life, that the larger picture became fuzzy at times. He’d never given much thought to the world as a whole. Kate did, though, and he wished she were here now, but at the same time he was very glad that she was far away from whatever they were driving into.

“Where you’re from … it’s not the same?” Might as well try a little small talk.

“Not entirely. My home is more simple than yours. You have things here that we do not have.”

“Like beer?” Jimmy asked, looking at the discarded cans on the floorboard.

Rurik grinned. “We have ale, plenty of it, but we do not have Budweiser.”

Jimmy laughed, for the first time in what seemed like a very long while. A preference for a specific brand of beer made Rurik seem almost ordinary … almost. “What else do you like?”

“Your women. They’re … soft. Not like the females in my world.”

“Your women aren’t soft?” Damn. Did that mean they were hard, like, literally?

“They are all warriors, like I am. Strong, determined fighters. They are good women, all, and some of them are very beautiful. But your women are different. They are …”

“Softer,” Jimmy supplied, when Rurik faltered.

“Yes. I also like your french fries and …” he paused for a moment, as if searching for the right word, “classic rock, and cherry pie.”

“Women, music, beer, and pie. Rurik, you’re just an all-American guy.” It occurred to Jimmy that Rurik had to have been here before, in order to appreciate all these things. “When was the last time you … popped in?”

“Nineteen sixty-eight.”

Jimmy got that chill again.
Vietnam
. His great-uncle had died there.

“Dude, you don’t look all that old.”

“I’ve been around for a very long time,” Rurik said. “And of course, I watch when I am not here. From the other side, we see everything.”

“Great,” Jimmy grumbled. “Even my most private moments aren’t sacred.”

Rurik smiled again. “You are assuming that your private moments are of interest to anyone other than you.”

True enough, but from here on out he’d always wonder … if there was anything for him from here on out.

“Okay, tell me the truth,” Jimmy said. “I can take it.” At least, he hoped he could. “You’re a warrior, you’re from another world, you’ve been around for, like, forever, you fight in wars …”

“When I am called, and when it is necessary. There are times when many of us come, and other times when only a handful are called.”

“And this time?”

Rurik’s jaw seemed to tighten before he sighed and answered. “Many of my kind have been called, which is a testament to the severity of the situation. I am sad to say, not many have made it through. Not many at all, unless since I have come here, others have also been able to make the journey. Many of the conduits, like your father, have been murdered before they could call their warriors over.”