Driven (12 page)

A
week before, even a day before, I would have said that I wasn't
capable of making any kind of deal that resulted in a murdering
parasite like her walking free, but I'd changed at some point over
the last twenty-four hours. I
needed
for Ben to survive, had to have it in ways that defied reason.

In
the grand scheme of things Ben's life wasn't any more valuable than
anyone else's. If every life is precious like I'd been taught in
school then how can you put one life in front of any other life? It
was like picking between priceless paintings, only I was ready to
pick, ready to discard one to the flames if it meant I could save the
other.

I
knew most people wouldn't agree with me. Some would probably even say
that I was picking the wrong life to save. Ben had been a drug
addict. He was a high-school dropout. Most people would say that if
you stacked him up against an
average
person that they should live and Ben should die.

If
I were to let this vampire go in return for her healing Ben's mind
then I'd be condemning hundreds, possibly thousands of other people
to a slow, painful death at her hand. There was no way to know how
many more years she'd live before someone else stopped her. Even
worse, each person she changed over into a vampire just made the math
worse. She was the terrible, parasitic seed and there was no way for
me to know how many apples of death she'd be responsible for as a
result of me letting her go now.

As
I worried at one of the clear threads inside of my mind, she
interrupted my thoughts. "You've found my probes. You know you
can't win, that I can read your thoughts as you have them. Give up,
take me down to your friend, to Ben, and I'll heal him in return for
you letting me go."

She
was right. In that instant she knew me better than anyone else…and
she knew me not at all.

I
couldn't hope to destroy her network of probes, I knew that. They
were too extensive and I was too tired, so I didn't even try.

Instead
I grabbed a single thread and thrust it at my beast. I forced her to
see what had invaded our mind, forced her to see past the camouflage
that had hidden them from her. My beast went crazy. She ripped
through the probes with a speed I never could have hoped to match on
my own, and she showed the kind of animal cunning that sometimes
defeats even the brightest intellect.

She
didn't try to destroy the network of threads from the inside out, she
went along the inside of our mental wall and cut them off even with
the wall. She pulled them up by the root and left what remained to
wither and die.

The
vampire sensed my actions as soon as I started them, but it didn't do
her any good. She attacked, lunging forward with a speed and grace
that was greater even than what the twins had demonstrated, but
knowing what I was going to do wasn't sufficient to overcome my even
greater speed.

If
I'd attacked her, moving towards her in an attempt to kill her, then
I would have been spitted like a pig. Instead I backed away from her,
springing backwards so hard that I sailed through the doorway behind
me and shattered the sheetrock of the corridor wall.

The
vampire knew I'd been committed to retreating. She'd thrown herself
forward with every ounce of speed she possessed. Under normal
circumstances it wouldn't have been out of line for her to commit so
strongly to an attack because she would have known what I was going
to do in plenty of time to foil any attack I might launch.

This
time was different though because my beast had thrown her out of my
mind. I bounced off of the corridor wall and moved forward myself,
dodging slightly to the side as I advanced. I could feel her pressing
on my mind, furiously trying to work her way back in so that she'd
once again have the upper hand. My beast was still doing the best she
could to keep the vampire out, but the parasite's efforts were almost
sufficient.

The
vampire brought her sword around, aiming her sword at the center of
my chest, the spot where I was
going
to be. It was a remarkable display of mentalist power, but it was too
little and much, much too late.

I
swept the point of her sword out and down, so that it took me through
the stomach, and then slashed her across the chest with the claws of
my right hand. She collapsed to the ground as her sword dropped from
hands too weak to hold it.

"Why?
I could have healed him. Without me he'll die."

"I
can tell when I'm being lied to. You aren't thousands of years old
and you weren't as omnipotent as you wanted me to believe. You pulled
a lot out of my mind, but you didn't know that I'll live for another
three hundred years."

She
was having a hard time talking around the blood leaking out of her
mouth, but my hearing was still good enough to make out what she was
saying.

"Something
so small…you were ready to give up everything for him."

"I
still am. I wasn't before, but I am now. I'd give up everything for
him, but only if I
know
that my sacrifice will pay off. I couldn't have guaranteed that you
were going to help him. You had the upper hand and we both knew it.
You had to die and I'll just have to take my chances that Rachel will
come through for me."

Jasmin Bianchi
Near the corner of Nassau and Liberty
Manhattan, New York

Once
all the vampires were dead I went back to Ben and found to my relief
that he was unharmed. I texted Alec and then gathered up our stuff
and carried Ben out into the darkness outside. The text to Alec was
probably a waste of time, but somebody needed to know that I was
leaving behind a massive problem. Alec didn't have the resources to
scrub the hostel clean, but the Coun'hij did. It was a long shot, but
maintaining the cloak of secrecy that had protected us from humans
and vampires was the one thing that the Coun'hij had demonstrated a
commitment to over the years.

I
moved us to a very pricy, very exclusive hotel. It meant that I only
had a few days before my money would run out, but it also guaranteed
a level of privacy and security that I wasn't going to find anywhere
else in the city. I expected to hear from Rachel the next day, but
almost forty-eight hours passed before she contacted me.

Go
to Nassau Street by yourself. Look for the red neon circle.

By
the time her text arrived, my injuries from the fight were almost
completely healed, which was the only thing that allowed me to keep
control of my beast. If I'd still been weak and hurt, my beast
probably would have shifted us into a hybrid and destroyed half the
room. I maintained control, but that didn't mean that I liked the
order, didn't mean that I was willing to go on letting her do this to
me indefinitely.

I
saw to Ben before I left, hanging a new IV bag from the golden light
fixture above the bed and brushing his hair back so that it wouldn't
be in his eyes. He seemed to sleep better that way.

I
hung the 'do not disturb' sign on the door and started down towards
25th Street. It took me an hour and a half to find the spot Rachel
had been talking about. The red neon circle was barely an inch
across, practically hidden behind a window display in the store where
it was located. I was debating whether or not to go inside the store
when Rachel called me.

"Hi,
Jasmin."

"Hi,
Rach, more wild goose chases?"

"That
depends on you, it always has."

I
expected my beast to be unruly, but instead I just felt tired. It had
started raining a few minutes before, a light, freezing drizzle, and
I wanted nothing so much as to just go back to the hotel and curl up
on the bed next to Ben.

"Whatever.
Just tell me what you want me to do so I can get it over with and go
back to Ben. He doesn't have much longer. I should be spending this
time with him rather than running around doing your dirty work."

"Tell
me about the hostel."

I
snorted. "I suspected that was more of your handiwork."

"Not
my handiwork, no more than a gentle nudge to make sure that you were
there to stop them."

"You
already know everything you need to, then. I killed them, nearly
getting killed myself in the process, and then we left."

Rachel
was silent for a few seconds and then she sighed. "I know some,
but not all. I know what happened, but not how you felt."

"Pain.
I felt a lot of pain. That happens when you get stabbed."

"Is
that the only pain you felt?"

It
took a couple of tries to get my voice working. "No, that wasn't
the only pain."

"Why
don't you tell me about that?"

I
wanted to tell her that it wasn't any of her business, but I forced
the beginning of anger back down where it wouldn't explode, at least
not yet, and leaned against the window behind me.

"They
were a bunch of vampires, a bunch of worthless, bloodsucking
parasites, but you already know that. There was this mentalist, a
pretty powerful one. She said that she could save Ben, that she could
reverse whatever the vampires he was working for had done to him. She
said that there weren't very many vampires strong enough to save him,
but that she could."

"Did
you believe her?"

"Yeah,
it only makes sense, at least the bit about a mentalist being able to
save him. A mentalist messed him up, it only stands that another
mentalist might be able to fix him."

There
was something about Rachel's voice, it almost seemed like I was
talking to another person for a minute. "That's very logical,
Jasmin. Logic can be a harsh mistress though, it doesn't have any
room for exceptions or mercy."

"Whatever.
Are we done now?"

"No,
not quite. You said just now that Ben doesn't have much time left.
She wasn't able to help him?"

"I
don't know if she could have helped him. I killed her a few seconds
after she offered to heal him."

"Because
she was a vampire? I thought you were ready to do whatever it took to
save Ben."

"Yes,
I killed her because she was a vampire, but not for the reason you
mean. I couldn't trust her. For all I knew if I let her close enough
to work on Ben she would have just made him worse."

"So
you would have let her live? You would have taken responsibility for
all of the blood she would have shed if you let her go? You would
have spared her?"

I
felt like a traitor to my own kind, but Rachel kept saying that she
needed more proof that I was ready to go however far it took to save
Ben.

"Yes,
damn it. I would have let her live if I'd been able to guarantee that
she would fix him in exchange. I would have traded however many
faceless, anonymous people it took in order to keep him alive."

"So
you're saying that not all lives are equally valuable?"

I
closed my eyes and nodded even though I knew she couldn't see the
gesture.

"Yes,
is that what you want to hear?"

"Honestly?
I'm not sure. I guess I can see both sides of that particular
argument right now."

My
patience was exhausted, just like my body. I turned and started down
the road, heading back to the hotel.

"Where
are you going, Jasmin?"

I
didn't bother asking how she knew I was moving.

"I'm
headed back to Ben. I don't need to be standing here in the rain to
play twenty questions with you. We can do that just as well if I'm
warm and dry in my hotel room."

"You're
right, we could talk just as easily there, but you can't save Ben
from there. Geoffrey's in the building you were just standing in
front of."

It
was suddenly hard to breathe. It took everything I had to manage a
response to her. "You're not screwing around with me again?"

"No,
he's really there, and you're going to break him out in a few
minutes."

"Break
him out? He's captive?"

"Yes,
he's being held against his will…by vampires."

My
stomach clenched tight at the word. Vampires…I'd killed
vampires already once in this city. I'd walked away without any kind
of serious wound, but it had been a closer fight than almost any
other I'd ever had.

"How
many?"

"That's
not important, Jasmin. It doesn't matter how many there are there,
you're going to win him free, I've seen it."

I
took a deep breath and then nodded. "How will I know when I've
found him?"

"He's
the only one there who's chained and bound."

"Okay,
which suite is he in? I'll go to him now."

"No,
not quite yet, it's not time yet." There was a pause, almost
like Rachel was consulting notes or something. "He's on the
twenty-third floor, in Suite A."

"Suite
A, on the twenty-third floor, okay. What else do I need to know?"

"In
a few minutes you're going to see a woman in a red dress walk by, you
need to follow her. She'll go to an elevator, but you don't want the
same elevator as she takes, you want the next one over. You'll know
it's the right one because it will open at the same time as hers."

My
mind felt like it was simultaneously reeling in shock and
hyper-focused. Every single word she was saying engraved itself on my
mind in fire.

"Your
elevator will have a vampire on it. He's headed towards Suite A.
Follow him, but make it look like you're going to go past him to
another suite. As soon as he opens the door to Suite A, kill him."

"Is
that all?"

"No,
you need to kill everyone there but Geoffrey. It's very important
that none of them survive, even the ones who aren't vampires."

The
world swayed slightly. I closed my eyes to keep from throwing up.
"I'm going to have to kill humans too?"