Mercy's Destiny: Montgomery's Vampires Trilogy (Book #3) (Montgomery's Vampires Series) (14 page)

Jason groped his shoulder as he rolled off me.

He’d been shot.

I rolled onto my stomach, dazed from my head slamming. Standing in the doorway was the silhouette of a tall and lanky man. He charged forward into the shed and pulled me to my feet, kicking the syringe to the other end of the room.

“Did he inject you?” The voice was a lot younger than I’d expected.

“
What
?” My brain was taking a moment to engage with what he was saying.

He peered into my face. “With the needle? Have you been injected?” From up-close I could see just how young the gunman was, about eighteen.

The teenager raised the gun and pressed it to Jason’s skull.

“No! Wait, please!” I screeched.

“But he was going to kill you,” the kid said incredulously, as if I hadn’t realized this fact.

Yes, but Jason had also dropped a couple fortune cookies for me when he hadn’t needed to. And he did seem sorry about having to inject me. And I really didn’t want to add “gunshot execution” to the list of horrible things I’d witnessed in the past few months, particularly not while I was pregnant. But I didn’t have time to explain any of these things to the teenager, who was looking dangerously close to pulling the trigger. 

I said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t.”

The kid shrugged and then brought the butt of gun down on Jason’s skull. Jason dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. He wasn’t dead, but he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. And he was going to have one monster of a headache when he woke up.

I ran out the door with the teenager in my wake. Looking toward the mansion, I could now see why there had been so much light coming into the shed. The mansion was on fire.

I looked at the kid, “You?”

“No. Richard and Maxine torched the place so they could get away. Good thing I heard you screaming, or else I’d still be in the house looking for you.”

“They’re gone?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Why were you looking for me? Who are you? Did the VGO send you?”

The kid shook his head, but to which question I didn’t know.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Well, whoever you are, thanks for saving me. I appreciate it.” I sprinted down the driveway away from the house, hardly feeling the gravel digging at the soles of my bare feet.

The kid caught up with me. “I have a car,” he said. “I can take you out of here.”

“Yah right! How do I know you aren’t one of them?” I angled my chin towards the blazing structure.

“Because I just saved your life,” he smiled. “And because I’m your grandfather.”

“Right,” I snorted. “You’re a teenager.”

But
could
he be my grandfather? After the story Maxine and Richard had told me . . .

“My car is this way,” the kid said, tugging at my sleeve.

“But what if the fire reaches the shed?” I asked. “Jason is still passed out in there.”

He shrugged. “You didn’t want me kill him, so I didn’t. Richard and Maxine set the fire, not me. So it’s not my fault if the flames travel.”

Seemed reasonable—Jason
had
tried to kill me after all. He’d regain consciousness in time. Hopefully.

I paused for a moment, weighing my options. I was barefooted, miles from home, and it was the middle of the night. I had no idea if my demented kidnappers would come back or what Jason would do to me when he awakened.

After being threatened by Michael Graves, the VGO, and the Nolans, I
had
to be running out of nemeses, right? If the kid had wanted me dead, he probably wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of saving my life.

“You can trust me, Mercy.”

I sighed. “Where are you parked?” I sure hoped he was right.

14

I nearly wept as we pulled onto the main road.

It occurred to me that I hadn’t wholeheartedly believed that I’d ever see the outside of the shed again. I took in a few deep breaths, relishing the sweet smell of freedom.

“Are you cold?” the kid asked, angling the heating vent toward me.

“I’m okay, thanks.” After being disrespected by the Nolans, it was such a pleasant change to be treated kindly.

“You can put the seat back and sleep, if you like.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “I’m so amped up right now that I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a week.”

“Understandable. We have about an hour until we get to my place, so make yourself comfortable. ”

“Is that where you’re taking me? To your place?” I asked.

The kid glanced over. His eyes were kind and he was handsome in an old movie star kind of way. I could see why Grams had fallen for him. My belated mother had looked a lot like him, especially around the mouth. I had no doubt that he was family. “Unless there’s somewhere else you’d like to go? I figured that my place would be the safest, since the Nolans know where you live.”

I was suddenly wary. “How do you know that?” I certainly hadn’t shared this information with him.

“I’ve been following you for a while.”

“You have?”

He nodded. “Yes. You don’t remember seeing me at the wedding?”

I squinted at my rescuer. “No. But I think my friend Joseph noticed you watching me.”

“Your VGO friend.” He wasn’t asking.

“You’ve done your homework on me, I see,” I said.

“Richard and Maxine aren’t the only ones who have been keeping tabs on you, though my reasons are completely different,” he said. “Your safety was and is my sole concern.”

I turned and smiled at my grandfather. I believed he was being sincere. “Thank you, again, for rescuing me. I was about two seconds away from being poisoned.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said. He turned on the radio very low, so we’d have some background noise. He had it tuned to a classical music station. We were in a nondescript gold sedan; it was definitely not as fancy as what the Nolans drove. The kid had a completely different vibe about him than the other two members of my remaining family. I was tremendously comfortable around him.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked shyly.

“Sure.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m sorry, I should have told you sooner. It’s Sebastian. Sebastian Monticello.”

“That sounds Italian.”

“It is.”

“Wow,” I commented, learning a new detail about my roots. It was all too much. Why, I wondered, did my life have to be that way? At least that was how it had been as of late; either nothing was going on or everything was happening all at once. “I guess that means that I’m also Italian?”

“Part Italian. Did you never ask Tilly about your ancestry?”

“It’s funny that you call my grandmother Tilly. Richard and Maxine called her Francine.”

“I knew your grandmother as Francine, too. But I know that you knew her as Tilly.”

“I only ever called her Grams, but I know what you’re saying.” I smiled to show that I appreciated him being so considerate. “Well, to answer your question, I never asked Tilly about my ancestry. Family was sort of a sore subject for her.”

“I can imagine,” said Sebastian.

“She thought you’d abandoned her.”

He frowned. “I know she did,” he said with regret.

“But I know about the deal you made with the Nolans.”

Sebastian was staggered. “Oh? They told you about me? That surprises me a great deal.”

“Not me,” I said acidly. “To them, it didn’t matter
what
they revealed to me, because they’d been planning on killing me all along.”

“Richard and Maxine are such loathsome excuses for human beings.”

“Why have you been following me?” I asked. “And why did you never reveal yourself to me? And why are you so young?” There were so many things I wanted to know.

“Which question would you like me to answer first?” Sebastian asked with a crooked grin. He seemed to appreciate and welcome my curiosity, which was a pleasant change from Richard, who had been aggravated to divulge more information than he absolutely had to.

“How about the question that will take the least amount of time to answer?” I suggested. “And then we can work up from there.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “Okay, so the reason I’ve been following you so much lately is because I suspected that Maxine and Richard were up to something. They’ve been under the impression that I’d vanished, but I’ve been keeping an eye on them for years and years.”

“Why?”

He asked, “If they told you about me, I’m assuming they told you about Richard’s hunting club?”

“Yah. Psychos.”

“Indeed. But you are more up to speed on things than I had expected, which is great,” he said. “Because of what I am—physically, I mean—I try to stay out of Nolan-vampire business as much as possible.”

I asked, “So, what are you then? Are you not a vampire?”

“I’ll get to that, but that question will have to be answered last—there’s a backstory to it.”

“Okay.” I was dying to hear that story, since whatever
species
Sebastian was I might be it also.

Sebastian said, “Keeping to myself has always been the safest course of action for me.”

“Hence why you stay out of Nolan-vampire business,” I deduced.

“Exactly.”

“Is this because of what happened with Grams?”

Sebastian thought for a moment. “Yes, partially, but also because of what my blood can do. My blood is like yours, Mercy. It can make vampires turn human. But the effect mine has is infinitely stronger than yours. And you and I are not the only kind out there with this mutation.”

I sat up in the seat. “We’re not?”

“No, but we are still scarce in numbers. There are far more vampires than there are us.” He paused. “Within our kind, there are two types of humans—and, yes, Mercy, we
are
human. There are those like myself who know what they are and have lived a life of secrecy. Then there are those like you—well, you up until very recently—who live their entire lives not knowing that their blood is unique.”

“I can’t believe it,” I muttered.

Sebastian glanced over at me. “You’re wondering why some of us know the secret and some of us don’t know.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“The reason some us know is almost by default,” he said. “As you can see, I’ve aged very slowly. I do age, however, at a very decelerated rate. My estimate is that I age one year for roughly every hundred and twenty years I’m on the planet.”

“How can that be, though?” I asked. “I
age and we’re related.”

“Yes, you do, but you will age very well. You won’t have to worry about your hair turning grey until you’re seventy,” he smiled.

I wanted to say that I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair turning grey at all if I could find a way to turn vampire. “That’s good to know. I’ll save lots of money on hair dye,” I chirped. “But why do I age and you don’t?”

“The simplest way to put it is that your blood has been watered down. You might have turned out differently if Tilly was also what I am. But she was a regular human, as were your mother and father,” he explained. “This is why many of our kind have no idea that they have special blood—because they aren’t placed in situations that drive them to figure it out. You probably would not have figured it out, either, had you not started congregating with vampires. You have to remember that most humans have no idea that vampires exist, so what good would it do them if they knew their blood could turn a vampire into a human? They wouldn’t believe it regardless.”

I asked, “How did you find out that our blood can make vampires become human?”

“I didn’t know until I heard about the serum that was created in England with your blood.”

“Oh, so you didn’t know until recently,” I said.

“That’s right,” he confirmed, nodding. “Curious, I tested my own blood against a vampire’s. I wanted to see if my blood would have the same effect. It did.”

“I’m surprised that it wasn’t discovered sooner—what our blood can do.”

“I’m not,” Sebastian said. “Our kind doesn’t typically associate with vampires.”

“Still,” I reasoned, “imagine all the humans that have given plasma at blood banks tailored specifically for vampires. At minimum, you’d think at least
one
of our kind would have donated and then at least
one
vampire would have turned human.”

“Who’s to say that a vampire hasn’t turned human?” Sebastian asked. “Maybe they did but kept it quiet. Or maybe they were out in the sun when the temporary humanness the blood had given them reversed. Also, you’re forgetting one very important detail.”

“What’s that?”

“I am very old,” Sebastian said simply.

“I’m not following.”

“I am the purest of our kind, but not the only one from my time,” my grandfather explained. “What I mean by this is that there were a few of us there at the beginning . . . during the incident. As the years progressed, we’ve migrated out and created families with regular humans, which is why our bloodline has lost potency. Considering my age, your blood is still very close to the origin. Most—dare I even say
all
—humans from our bloodline who are living currently are generations and generations removed from the source. I’m talking
dozens
of generations removed, Mercy. It makes my head hurt trying to do the math. Their blood, while
technically
different from the average human, would not be as potent as yours. So, if a vampire had consumed their blood, it would almost certainly have zero effect.”

“Hmm. That makes sense,” I said. “I used to be a vampire decoy at a place called Dignitary, right?”

“Yes, I know,” Sebastian said with a frown. “But now I’m the one not following.”

“Well, there had been a few decoys, all human, who had become romantically involved with vampires,” I explained. “And when a vampire and a human are romantically involved, it’s pretty much given that the vampire will, uh, bite their partner.” I was a tad embarrassed to discuss such an intimate topic with my teenaged grandfather.

“Yes, I imagine so,” Sebastian said, probably to stop me from elaborating. We both knew what I was getting at.

“It never occurred to me that I might come from a special bloodline,” I continued. “But I did wonder what I might have in common with these decoys. One of my bosses at Dignitary, a vampire named Michael Graves, had tried to murder me because I was what he called a Cataclysmic.”

“And what is a Cataclysmic?”

“It was a term Michael had invented,” I answered. “He called a few other humans—the decoys at Dignitary who had dated vampires, specifically—Cataclysmics, too. It was Michael’s term for humans who were potentially responsible for ending the vampire race. Michael alleged that I was that the Cataclysmic in question. I wondered if Michael might have been right, because my blood turned vampires human when blood from other so-called Cataclysmics hadn’t.”

“This is information I did not know,” Sebastian commented.

“And this is why I’m concerned by the fact that my psychotic great-grandparents have my blood. No telling what they’re planning on doing with it.”

Sebastian’s forehead creased. “We’ll find them. At their age, they won’t be able to run for long.”

“I hope so,” I said, feeling my nerves come to life. I had to stop stressing; it couldn’t be very good for the baby. “What do you call what you are? Those who have blood as potent as yours?”

“Partials.”

I asked, “Partial what, though?”

“Partial human and partial vampire. But we are predominantly human.”

“But . . . But I thought you said that you aren’t vampire.” I wasn’t sure if it was because I was hungry or exhausted or pregnant—or all three—but I was perplexed. I hoped Sebastian wasn’t getting frustrated with my incessant questions.

“We aren’t vampire, not in the traditional sense,” he said.

I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I didn’t really know where to go from there.

After a moment, Sebastian said, “I’ll first answer your question about why I didn’t make contact with you. And then I’ll tell the story of how Partials came to be. Sound good?”

“Sounds great,” I smiled, thrilled that I’d now have some ancestral information to pass on to my child—

I
still
couldn’t believe that I was going to have a baby! I’d start to forget that I was pregnant for a millisecond, and then it would dawn on me all over again, leaving me shell-shocked once more. I was actually pretty excited about the whole thing. I couldn’t wait to tell Robert—
if
Robert ever came home.

Robert will come home. He will. Joseph will find him
, I told myself.
He had to.