Secrets in the Shadows (23 page)

“Glamour,” he said, as if reading her mind. “You won’t feel a thing.” He pulled on her wrist, drawing her toward him. She couldn’t help resisting. “If you don’t struggle, I’ll leave your mind alone except for the glamour to mask the pain.”

He had enough of a read on her to know how much she hated the mind games, and she didn’t like it. Battling her instincts to fight like hell, she moved to the edge of the bed and swung her legs around so she was sitting next to him.

“Get it over with.” She gritted her teeth, wishing that would quell her trembling. Her stomach roiled, and she wondered if he would mind if she barfed on him when he bit her.

He brushed her hair out of the way, then tilted her head to the angle he liked. Sweat trickled down the small of her back and soaked her palms. In contrast, her mouth was Sahara-dry.

“Take a deep breath,” Gabriel said. “Truly, there’s nothing to fear.”

She had some instructions she’d like to give him right now, but antagonizing a vamp who was about to bite you probably wasn’t the brightest idea in the world. She ignored his advice.

He moved in quickly, and Hannah lost the fight against her nerves. She tried to pull away, but he held her head tight as his mouth came to rest on her neck. She felt the brush of his lips, hot and wet, then a stroke of his tongue. Before she even had a chance to shudder at the violation, he’d released her. Something warm trickled down the side of her neck. Without comment, Gabriel pulled the pillowcase off the pillow, then wadded it up and placed it against her neck.

“Hold this and put pressure on it.”

Numbly, she obeyed. As he’d promised, she hadn’t felt even the slightest twinge of pain. The fact that his glamour had been mucking with her mind without her feeling any awareness of it made her stomach churn a little more.

“Now,” Gabriel said, sounding terribly satisfied with himself, “we wait until Jules wakes up, and he sees just how vulnerable the two of you are.”

***

Jules awakened with a nasty crick in his neck from having slept on it wrong. He rolled onto his back and stretched, working the crick out before he pushed his suffocating coat off his face.

Hannah was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching him. She looked scared, which was all wrong for Hannah. Surely she had to know she was in no danger from him! He sat up slowly, trying to find the perfect words to set things straight after last night’s fiasco.

Hannah looked away from him, over her shoulder. He followed her gaze and saw Gabriel, standing in the middle of the room and looking smug.

“Marde!” he cried, struggling out from under his makeshift blanket. His instincts spurred him to put himself between Gabriel and Hannah, to protect her, even though he was of little use against the older, stronger vampire.

“Relax, Jules,” Hannah said. She didn’t sound particularly relaxed herself. “He’s been here for over an hour, and he hasn’t killed either one of us yet.”

“Over an hour?” Jules asked. He glanced at the windows, where the curtains were drawn back to reveal the failing light. It had taken him almost a century to be able to move about before sunset. How many centuries would it have taken Gabriel to withstand the full light of day?

“Daylight won’t protect you,” Gabriel said. “Nor will it protect your lady.” He moved Hannah’s hair away from her neck, revealing a pair of neat puncture wounds.

He’d bitten Hannah! He’d scared her, hurt her.

All rational thought fled Jules’s brain. With a primal roar, he launched himself at Gabriel, fangs lowered. A red haze clouded his vision. Blood thundered in his ears, muting all other sounds. Pain blossomed in his stomach, but he ignored it. He couldn’t see Gabriel through the weird haze, but he could feel him. He charged once more.

More pain, this time from the region of his kidneys. Although he was aware of it, it hardly seemed important. He snapped his jaws, hoping to taste blood as his fangs sank into flesh, but his teeth closed on empty air.

A crushing weight crashed into his back and he fell. His head collided with the floor and he tasted blood. Still the pain was as nothing and he tried to thrash. But something heavy was sitting on his back, knee digging hard into his already wounded kidney. The pain seemed a little more real, more urgent. An arm snaked under his chin. He tried to bite it, but failed. Then, that arm pressed hard on his windpipe and he couldn’t breathe. The red faded from his vision as he struggled for breath. Then, his vision went entirely dark.

***

He came to lying on his stomach on the floor. His lower back throbbed. His chin ached. And every gasped breath hurt on its way down his throat. He groaned and turned his head slightly, his eyes coming to rest on a pair of black motorcycle boots.

“Are you in there, Guardian?” Gabriel asked. “Or are you still berserk?”

Jules blinked away a haze of confusion and pushed himself up to his knees. Hannah, her face ashen-pale, came to squat beside him.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he answered hoarsely, not at all sure he was. He’d always had a volatile temper, had lost control of it before. But never like that. It was … disconcerting.

Hannah helped him to his feet. The pain that had seemed distant not so long ago now assailed him full force. He winced and hissed, but he would only have to bear it for a little while as his body healed. Clinging to his arm, whether for his support or her own, Hannah fixed Gabriel with a fierce glare.

“You didn’t have to hurt him! I know your glamour is strong enough to stop him.”

Gabriel held up both hands, fingers splayed. “Glamour is a trick of the mind. There has to be a mind there for it to work.”

If Jules didn’t know better, he would swear that Gabriel was as shaken as he was. Then he remembered what had set him off in the first place, and for a moment he teetered on the brink once more.

“Well,” Gabriel said, “I suppose I more than made my point. I did Hannah no harm, so calm down.”

“You touch her again and I’ll kill you,” Jules snarled, the beast within him straining against the leash.

Gabriel looked unimpressed. “If you’re finished pounding your chest, I have a proposal for you.”

Jules’s temper subsided, for now, and he regarded Gabriel warily. “What kind of proposal?”

“You tell me everything you know about Eli and about the Guardians.”

“We already had this conversation,” Jules retorted. “What makes you think I’m going to change my mind now?”

Gabriel’s smile was slow and wicked. “Because in return, I’ll give you Ian Squires.”

***

Ian’s plans had pretty much gone to shit. The attack against Camille had been a total disaster. He’d known she was powerful, of course, but he’d thought a dozen fledglings ought to at least have a chance against her. Perhaps they would have, if that interfering Guardian hadn’t gotten in the way. But as he looked over his remaining “children,” most of whom were still shell-shocked, he realized they’d probably never stood a chance. He should have waited until they were older and stronger before attacking. It was all Jules’s fault. Again. If only he’d brought the Guardians with him as he was supposed to …

At least one thing had gone right—Camille had swallowed the story about Gabriel being responsible. Ian smiled secretly to himself. Gabriel was going to die at Camille’s hands. How Ian wished he could be there to see it!

“What do we do now?” one of the fledglings asked, and they all looked at him with blank eyes.

“Don’t pester me,” he muttered, sweeping them all with a look that had each of them hanging his head. He’d picked his fledglings carefully. Camille had made a dreadful mistake in transforming a man of his intelligence and expecting him to bow to her will at all times.

Yes, he’d learned much from his maker, and his fledglings were too stupid—and too scared of him—to challenge him in anything. Now, all he had to do was use his hard-earned education to bury her. Because he was not about to settle for being the Master of Nowheresville. No, only Baltimore would do.

The farmhouse had been the perfect hideout, up until now. Only thirty minutes outside of Baltimore, it afforded him easy access to the city while being far enough out that Camille and Gabriel knew nothing of it. He’d visited regularly, bringing food for his fledglings while he trained their powers.

The property had been abandoned for years, the house crumbling from neglect, on its way to being reclaimed by nature. None of the neighboring houses was close enough for anyone to hear the screams.

One of Ian’s favorite games had been to release a mortal in the darkened house and let his fledglings hunt it down. In headlong flight, one of those mortals had actually fallen through the floor and into the basement. She’d broken her ankle in the process, making her easy prey. Now, his fledglings liked to herd mortals to that hole in the floor—covered by a rug—so they could enjoy the despair of their trapped victim. Even now, Ian could hear the muffled sobs of the hitchhiker they’d caught earlier.

As perfect as the house was for hiding a dozen fledgling vampires, it was not a place Ian himself would like to live. He preferred more creature comforts. And fewer creatures. He wrinkled his nose. The house stank of bat guano, and had no electricity or running water.

No, before he figured out what to do about Camille and Gabriel, he had to find a more comfortable base of operations. One that couldn’t be traced to him, for if Gabriel managed to survive, he’d surely come hunting for Ian.

Surveying his remaining fledglings once more, Ian’s eyes came to rest on Tommy Monroe. Tommy seemed to shrink in on himself, trying to hide in plain sight. Not an easy thing to do when you were an overweight linebacker. He’d only been a junior in high school when Ian had taken him, but he was most definitely big for his age. Ian smiled.

“If I remember rightly,” he said, “your house is only two miles from here.”

Tommy swallowed and nodded.

“It’s just your mom and sister there now, right?”

Tommy’s eyes widened. If he’d been mortal, his face would have paled. “Please don’t …”

Ian waved off his concern. “Killing them would do me no good. The house would go on the market and someone else would move in. But if I convert them, I bet they’d be overjoyed to let me live there.” It was perfect. The house would still be under the Monroes’ names, but with them as his fledglings, he could take over the place. He could even send them to live in the farmhouse with their son while he lived in comfort. Besides, Tommy’s big sister was quite a tempting morsel, if memory served. And if Tommy objected to what Ian planned to do to her … There were plenty of other muscle-bound dimwits available for the taking.

Tommy looked less than thrilled with the idea of Ian transforming his family. But though he was basically dumb as a post, he wasn’t dumb enough to argue with his master.

“I think I’ll take care of it tonight,” Ian announced, happy to have at least one problem taken care of.

“Can I come with you?” Tommy asked. “Maybe they’d be less scared if …” His voice trailed off.

If the ignoramus thought Ian wanted his victims less scared, Ian wouldn’t correct him. “I was thinking of letting you have one of the little tidbits in the basement, but if you’d rather come with me, you can.” Ian hadn’t had a chance to play with the girl yet, but he’d already thoroughly enjoyed the street punk he’d brought from the city last night. The punk had thought he was tough. Ian had taught him differently. There was probably enough blood left in him for Tommy.

The mere suggestion that he might feed brought Tommy’s fangs down with lightning speed. He tongued them, still getting used to their feel. Then his eyes drifted to the gaping hole in the living room floor just across the hall. The hitchhiker had stopped crying, giving in to despair. No doubt Tommy would inspire her to more tears before he was through with her fellow prisoner.

“You can do whatever you want to the boy,” Ian said. “But the girl is mine—no biting, no fucking. Not until I’ve had her.”

Tommy’s head bobbed up and down in a vigorous nod. Ian made a sweeping gesture with his hand, and Tommy forgot all about his dear family in his hurry to have his meal.

***

Gabriel’s offer seemed to echo in the room, though that was surely Jules’s imagination. With Gabriel’s help, catching Ian and killing him would actually be possible. Oh, it was a wicked, evil temptation Gabriel was offering!

“It might take us a while to catch him,” Gabriel continued, “but he’s too stupid to elude us for long.”

Ian was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. He’d graduated from Penn summa cum laude, although just because he was intellectually gifted didn’t mean he had any street smarts. After all, what kind of moron would let someone like Camille turn him into a vampire? Ian must have thought that becoming vampire would magically transform him into something other than a pathetic loser. Not even the transformation could work that kind of miracle.

Apparently, Jules was silent too long, for Hannah spoke up, looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Tell me you’re not actually considering this.”

Even if he weren’t considering it, he wouldn’t say so in front of Gabriel. Somehow, he didn’t think good ol’ Gabe would take too kindly to refusal.

Jules met Hannah’s reproachful gaze. “I could probably track Ian down eventually without Gabriel’s help, but what would I do then? He’s already proven he can overpower me, and it’s not like I can sneak up on him.”

Gabriel’s smile was sly in the extreme. “I, however, would have no trouble with him. And I’d be happy to hold him still while you killed him as slowly as you liked.”

The glow in Gabriel’s eyes was not a pleasant sight at all. It was all Jules could do not to shudder. “I’d settle for a quick, clean kill.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “After what he did to you?” His tone and the knowing look in his eye suggested he knew exactly what Ian had done. Humiliation flooded him, and he fought the urge to look away.

Gabriel laughed. “I persuaded him to tell me all about his little adventure in Philadelphia when he returned to the fold. I never did like the little weasel. Always looking for someone else to blame for his fuck-ups.”