Insatiable (40 page)

And then he began squeezing her wrist so hard that Meena, tightly as she tried to hold on, eventually had to let go. Alaric’s stake fell with a clatter to the marble floor of the altar and rolled off and away, until it was out of sight.

But still, he didn’t stop squeezing, even when Meena cried out in pain, collapsing to her knees in front of him and the Dracul and the altar and everyone, convinced he was going to shatter every last bone in her wrist….

“Do you think because you can see death before it comes that you can outwit me, Meena Harper?” he asked her, looking down at her with eyes that glowed red as hot barbecue coals. His teeth had turned into pointed fangs, and they were suddenly entirely too near Meena’s throat for comfort. “Or are the rumors true and you can read the thoughts of the dead, as well? Is that how you’ve managed to captivate my brother so?”

Read the thoughts of the dead? No wonder they were so desperate for her blood.

“No,” she said with a gasp. “I can’t read anyone’s thoughts, living
or
dead. I can only how tell how someone is going to die—”

Dimitri smiled, his fangs gleaming menacingly in the candlelight. “Oh, my dear,” he said. “I think you overestimate yourself. Because if that were true, why on earth would you have come here tonight?”

Her eyes filled with tears from the pain he was inflicting on her wrist and the fact that those fangs were looming closer and closer to her throat.

This is it.,
Meena thought, closing her eyes.
It’s finally my turn to find out if there’s anything beyond that nothingness….

That’s when she heard someone shout Dimitri’s name in warning. And she opened her eyes to see something huge and heavy and black come swooping down on a rope from the choir loft, striking Dimitri Antonescu squarely in the chest and sending him crashing into the dragon symbol spray-painted behind the altar.

Dimitri was so surprised, he let go of Meena’s wrist…but only just in time to keep from dragging her across the altar with him.

Alaric Wulf, releasing the rope and landing on his feet a few yards
away from where Meena lay panting on the cool white marble, surveyed his sword blade.

“Damn,” he said. “I missed.”

Meena, more relieved than she could say to see him, sat up.

“What do you mean, you missed?” she asked. “You almost chopped my head off.”

Alaric pointed at where Dimitri was rising from the crumbling rubble and had just let out a furious, wordless scream.

“I mean I missed
him,
” Alaric said. Then he glanced over his shoulder. “And they don’t look too happy to see me either.”

The Dracul, outraged at the assault on their leader, were swarming at Alaric, hissing in protest. He lifted his blade in defensive. Meena crawled across the sanctuary floor toward him, favoring her tender wrist.

She knew it was hopeless, of course. They were both dead. There were probably a hundred Dracul against the two of them.

Still, she wasn’t going to let him go down alone. There had to be something she could do.

Only what? She’d lost the stake he’d given her, her single weapon.

Alaric seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Did you have any kind of plan when you came sneaking in here?” he asked her as he swung his blade at the encroaching vampires.

“No,” Meena said when she reached his feet. “Did you?”

“No time,” he said. “Reach into my pocket. There might be some holy water or stakes left in there.”

She rose to her knees, searching the pockets of his leather trench coat as he waved his sword around.

“No,” she said, disappointment surging through her. “There’s nothing there.”

“I told you not to follow me,” Alaric said. “Didn’t I?”

“You did,” Meena admitted. “But I couldn’t sit back and let everyone die.”

“So.”

They both looked over at Dimitri, who was standing a few feet away from them, a very discontented look on his face. He had obviously not enjoyed being kicked into a wall by a Palatine guard.

“As I think you can see, you’re outnumbered.” Dimitri raised a dark eyebrow. “A bit like when you and your partner were in that warehouse outside of Berlin, eh, Mr. Wulf?”

“That was you?” Alaric looked furious. “I swear, I’ll rip you limb from limb for that, you—”

“Don’t be so childish,” Dimitri said with a laugh. “You Palatine are all the same. Arrogant. Always thinking you’re one step ahead of us. But even with all your fancy modern computer equipment to track our movements and our money, we’ll still find ways to slip through your fingers and prevail…because of your arrogance. And your stupidity. It’s because of your stupidity that we’re going to kill the pregnant woman now.”

Meena’s heart flew into her throat. The hordes of Dracul crowding around her and Alaric at the bottom of the dais parted a little, and she saw that Leisha had been pulled onto her feet. She stood with her arms being clutched on either side by Gregory Bane and Shoshona. They were both grinning a little maniacally, but Leisha didn’t look too happy.

Maybe that was because Gregory Bane was hissing at her, showing off his fangs.

“Stop it,” Meena said, climbing shakily back to her feet. Her wrist was throbbing, and her head wasn’t feeling too good, either. “I’ll give you what you want.”

She limped to the altar and lifted the pewter bowl, which shone in the candlelight.

“Meena,” Alaric said. His bright blue eyes shot her a warning. He shook his head at her.

No. Don’t do it.

But Meena knew it wasn’t any use. She had failed. Alaric had failed. Lucien obviously wasn’t coming, for whatever reason, or he’d have been there by then.

It was over. It was useless.

It was done.

Her toes were on the precipice.

“Take it,” she said, holding out the bowl to Dimitri. “Take it all. I don’t care anymore. Just let Leisha go.”

“Well, thank you.” Dimitri lifted the bowl from her hands and gave her a courtly bow. “Aren’t you an accommodating creature?”

Then he extracted from an inside coat pocket a dagger with a gold, elaborately jeweled hilt. This he pressed to Meena’s throat. She swallowed, her heart hammering.

But all Dimitri did next was look over at Gregory Bane and Shoshona, then nod.

“You can kill the woman now,” he said to them.

“
What?
” Meena twisted around just as Dimitri, still pressing the blade in the direction of her neck, seized her by the arm and began dragging her toward the altar. “
No!
”

But it was too late. The Dracul surged forward, falling hungrily upon the spot where Meena had last seen Leisha, even as Alaric leapt toward them, intent on saving her friend.

Except that Leisha wasn’t there anymore. Meena blinked, thinking her eyes must be playing tricks on her in all the candlelight.

But it was true. The hungry Dracul—Fran, Stan, Shoshona, all of them—were staring at an empty spot where Leisha had been. Meena, twisting in Dimitri’s grip on the dais by the altar, caught sight of a flash of movement on the far side of the church.

That’s how she saw that Leisha was already in the back of the church, being rushed out the doors and into the waiting arms of her husband, Adam, by none other than…

Mary Lou Antonescu?

Meena would have thought that she’d imagined the whole thing in some kind of post-traumatic-stress-induced hallucination if Dimitri hadn’t pointed the dagger after Mary Lou and screamed, “
Traitor!
”

The Dracul whipped around, almost as one, and launched themselves toward Mary Lou, as if intent on ripping
her
apart, as they’d been about to do to Leisha.

That’s when a gust of wind rose up from nowhere and tore through the church. It was so strong that it blew out every single candle flame, causing everyone to throw an arm up over his or her eyes in order keep out all the dust it raised from the construction.

Then the wind turned and whipped back through the church again, this time in the opposite direction.

Now each and every candle wick magically reignited, the flames burning merrily again.

After the final breath of wind died down, and Meena had cautiously lowered the arm Dimitri wasn’t grasping, shaken by what had just occurred, she—and everyone else in St. George’s—saw that there was someone else standing on the dais beside Dimitri Antonescu. Someone who hadn’t been there before that freakish wind had whipped so savagely throughout the church, dousing and then reigniting all those candles.

It was Dimitri’s brother, Lucien.

The prince of darkness.

11:00
P.M
. EST, Saturday, April 17
St. George’s Cathedral
180 East Seventy-eighth Street
New York, New York

L
ucien didn’t even glance in Meena’s direction. Instead, all his powers of concentration appeared to be focused on his brother.

“Dimitri,” he said. His voice, as always, was like velvet. “I understand you wanted to see me about something?”

Dimitri still had hold of Meena’s arm. It was her sore arm, the wrist he’d nearly broken. Or maybe he
had
broken it. Meena didn’t know.

He still held the knife, as well.

“Why, yes, Lucien,” he said. His own voice purred like a kitten’s. “What a pleasure it is to see you tonight. And what an entrance. But then, you always did know how to make those, didn’t you?”

“Let go of her,” Lucien said. Now the velvet was more like ice.

“But Miss Harper and I were only just getting acquainted,” Dimitri said, casually running the point of the jeweled dagger down her bare neck. “And I want to be able to read everyone’s minds and tell the future, too. I don’t think it’s fair that you’re getting to have all the fun.”

“I think you’ve been having quite enough fun,” Lucien said coldly. “I went to Concubine earlier today, and I saw what you were keeping in the basement.”

Dimitri looked surprised. He was holding Meena close enough
to him that she felt him go still. Everyone in the church—the Dracul, even Alaric, at the bottom of the dais—seemed to be watching the brothers’ tense conversation intently.

“Did you?” Dimitri asked. Then he smiled so that his fangs showed again. “So you happened to stumble across part of my latest financial enterprise—”

“TransCarta,” shouted a male voice from somewhere near the back of the church.

Meena, recognizing that voice, froze.

No. Oh, no.

Every head in the building swiveled to follow the sound of that voice.

Which was how everyone managed to get such a good look at Meena’s brother, Jon, standing in the entrance of the church, flanked by Sister Gertrude and Abraham Holtzman, who was holding a stake to Stefan Dominic’s chest. Behind them stood every friar, nun, and novice from the Shrine of St. Clare.

Meena raised her gaze to the ceiling. As if things hadn’t been going badly enough. Just how awful was this night going to get?

“Oh, hello,” Abraham called out cheerfully, waving to them. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Do go on. As long as no one makes a move to attack us, I’ll let this fellow here live.”

“Let him kill me, Father,” Stefan Dominic cried, struggling in the guard’s arms. “Please! I’d rather die than dishonor you in this way!”

Neither Dimitri nor Lucien looked particularly impressed by this impassioned speech. But it was at least clear that Stefan’s theatrical ambitions hadn’t been misdirected.

“Stefan!” Shoshona looked upset. She flung a panicky look up at Lucien and Dimitri. “Please don’t let them kill him, my lords. You can’t!”

But Dimitri hadn’t taken his gaze off Lucien, who went on. “Yes. TransCarta is the bank where all the dead men I found in your basement used to work.”

“TransCarta bought the network that owns the show I work for,” Meena said with a gasp of surprise.

Although she ought, she realized belatedly, to have said
used to work for.

“It’s actually the Swiss private equity firm that Dimitri Antonescu formed last year,” Jon said.

“
Trans
for Transylvania, obviously,” Alaric said thoughtfully. “I don’t know what
Carta
is for.”

Lucien looked at his half brother with a raised eyebrow. “That would be Carta Abbey, I presume,” he said. “Where you tried to kill me…what was it? The third time?”

Dimitri shrugged. “I thought it had a nice ring to it. A private equity firm allows one to conduct business without the usual scrutiny by the federal government or the prying eyes of
other
entities.” He gave Alaric a knowing wink.

“Because they aren’t publicly traded on the stock exchange or subject to any other requisite filings or disclosures,” Alaric said through gritted teeth. He looked as if he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this before.

“Absolutely.” Dimitri grinned. “They’re a fine way for an individual like myself who might value his privacy to expand his, er, brand…through, say, a television network.”

Lucien frowned. “Dimitri,” he said in a warning tone, “we don’t
have
a brand.”

“Actually, members of both the financial and the entertainment community,” Dimitri said, “are quite impressed by the Dracula name and eager to experience immortality, it turns out. And consumers…well, their fear of death is what drives the beauty industry. By the year 2013 they’re set to spend at least forty billion dollars on cosmetic surgery services alone. Well, who wouldn’t want to live forever, if they could? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Miss Harper, in your line of work?”

Meena felt as if a cold shadow had passed over her soul.

Revenant Wrinkle Cream.

Of course.
Revenant
meant animated corpse.

“It’s you,” she cried in disgust, trying to break away from Dimitri’s grip. “
You’re
the one behind the new products they want us to feature on
Insatiable
.”

“Of course,” he said with a smile, easily defeating her attempts to free herself from him. “But you needn’t look that way, my dear. We’re
no different from your former sponsor, really. We too only want to help your viewers find products that help improve their lives.”

“Like the Regenerative Spa for Youthful Awakening?” Meena demanded.

“I’ve visited one of those,” Lucien said in a voice as cold as January. “In the basement of Concubine.”

“Nonsense,” Dimitri said. “That was merely a prototype. You were never supposed to see it in that state, Lucien. We have plans to upgrade and expand our spas worldwide—”

“No,” Lucien said, cutting him off. “Because this ends. Now.”

Dimitri shrugged. “This may not be how
you
envisioned the family enterprise, Lucien, but I can assure you I’ve seen the financials, and the potential for growth is astrono—”

“There
is
no family enterprise,” Lucien said, taking a step toward Dimitri. “And I believe the potential for growth of your enterprise is going to significantly decrease if you keep feeding defenseless girls to your newborns. Although they may enjoy the idea of looking young forever, one thing you seem never to have learned about humans over the years, Dimitri, is that they tend to dislike murder.”

Meena, looking from the face of one brother to the other, was too stunned to keep up with the conversation.

Not because she was standing in a deconsecrated church with a dagger at her throat, in front of a ravenous horde of vampires.

But because she’d realized that Dimitri was right:

She
did
know all about wanting to live forever.

Not only had she spent over half her life protecting everyone she’d ever met from an untimely death, but it was what she wrote about: the insatiable thirst for life (and love) of Victoria Worthington Stone and her daughter Tabby.

But were Victoria and Tabby
really
so insatiable? All they’d ever wanted was someone to love and care for them.

Wasn’t that very human need exactly what corporations like Dimitri’s were taking advantage of when they hinted that women would never find that special someone unless they purchased their products in order to look a certain way? They preyed upon human insecurity the way the Dracul preyed on human life.

Suddenly, Meena realized just how twisted Lucien’s brother really was. And who the truly insatiable ones had been all along. “If you’re so eager to expand the Dracul brand but still so frightened of the Palatine that you’d go to all the trouble to form a Swiss company just so they couldn’t seize your funds, why not at least hide the dead girls’ bodies, Dimitri?” Lucien was asking in wonder, shaking his head. “That’s what I can’t understand. Exposing the bodies meant exposing everything.”

Bait
.

That’s
what Alaric had meant.

“Because he wanted to lure you here, Lucien,” Meena said. It was all so clear to her now. “He was never worried about the Palatine. The dead girls were just to bring you to New York, so he could get you here and do
this
.”

The coronation was just the final phase in Dimitri’s master plan to turn all of America—and soon the world—into a vampire smorgasbord. The only thing standing in his way was…

Lucien’s glance shifted away from his brother and toward her.

And when their gazes met, Meena felt something like an explosive charge go off inside her head.

She could see in his eyes how much he loved her.

And how hard it was for him not to kill his brother then and there, with his bare hands, for what Dimitri had done to her.

But he couldn’t.

Not while Dimitri stood so close to her, with one arm still wrapped around her, a dagger at her neck, his fangs within such easy snapping distance.

Meena nodded. She understood. It was all right. The important thing was that she had to keep Dimitri and the Dracul from doing what they were there to do:

Kill the one impediment to their master plan. Lucien.

It was right then that a stake went whizzing from a crossbow somewhere near the doors of the church and plunged directly into the center of Lucien’s back.

“Yes!” Meena heard her brother scream. “Did you see that? I got him!”