Twilight Prophecy (11 page)

Brigit looked at Lucy again. “You really know your shit, don’t you? I mean, you’ve already got a lot, and you didn’t even have your reference books or notes or anything.”

“Or my glasses,” Lucy added, fishing them from their designated pocket in the bag and putting them on. “It’s what I’ve been doing all my life. What my parents did. I grew up with this.” She thought Brigit looked as if she admired her just for a moment, before the other woman shielded her expression. Lucy decided to try again for more information. She’d really been counting on that book to tell her what she wanted to know about the vampires. “It would help a lot if I knew what you were looking for. Specifically, I mean. That way I could let you know the minute I find it.”

Brigit studied her face. “It’s a reasonable request. I’ll ask and get back to you. Meanwhile, the rest of your stuff is in your satchel. Phone included. There’s no reception in here, and the wireless connection for the computer is password protected. God knows 3G hasn’t made it out here yet. So there’s no risk you’ll do anything stupid, like calling for help.”

“I wasn’t going to do that.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Brigit said, and then she nodded at Lucy’s cleavage. “That’s pretty,” she observed.

Lucy’s hand rose, and she felt the necklace she’d forgotten all about, the jade Kwan Yin Mr. Folsom had been using as a bookmark. And as she fingered it, she detected for the first time what felt like a seam in the jade.

“Thank you. It was…a gift,” she said, keeping her hand closed around it so Brigit wouldn’t spot that telltale rift, surprised that Brigit seemed to be making an effort to be friendly.

“Suits you,” Brigit said. “Kwan Yin. Mercy and compassion and all that soft-ass shit. I’d probably be more in tune with a Kali pendant. You know, with her necklace of skulls and every arm wielding a weapon or a severed body part.”

“Destruction and creation go hand in hand. Kali has her purpose.”

Brigit frowned. “You’re the second person today to use that word to me. Purpose. Interesting. I gotta run. The world’s going to hell out there. You get back to work, okay?”

“Thank you. For the food, the clothes.”

“You’re welcome.” Brigit left the room, taking Mr. Folsom’s book with her.

Lucy fingered the jade Kwan Yin, prying at the very fine seam along her graceful neck. As she tugged, Kwan Yin’s head popped off to reveal that this was more than a necklace.

It was a flash drive.

She dug through her bag until she found her state-of-the-art cell phone—the brand-new Cyborg 4G. She’d been teased over it when she’d bought it, but she was a geek on many levels, including technology, and she’d had to have it. And now she was glad. How many phones had a USB port built in?

Not many. Yet. It was the one thing they lacked, she’d often said.

And then she’d bought the one model that did have one.

She turned her phone on, noting that Brigit had been right—the words
No Signal
floated in the upper left corner of the screen. Quickly, Lucy plugged Kwan Yin into the side, and when the icon popped up, she tapped it.

And got a Truth-Eyes Only Version pdf.

Luckily her ereading program could handle pdf files. She quickly opened it, imported the file and then disconnected the flash drive. After putting Kwan Yin’s head back on, she draped the charm around her neck again, tucking it beneath her shirt, out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.

Finally she sat back down and began reading the “Eyes Only” version of Folsom’s book. She guessed that meant that there were secrets here even the public version of the book didn’t contain. And when she saw how he depicted the vampires as soulless, bloodthirsty beasts, she hoped to God that part was one of those secrets. But given what Brigit had told her—the vigilantes, the murders—she guessed not.

L
ucy knew she was supposed to be sleeping, and she certainly needed some sleep.

She’d worked throughout the night on the transcripts, usually with someone present to watch over her, either Brigit or Roland, the dark, soft-spoken Frenchman who dressed and spoke as formally as if he’d stepped off the pages of a historical novel. His accent had eluded her at first, it was so faint. Barely noticeable, but there all the same. And his manners were flawless. He seemed too gentle to be—a vampire, not to mention—Rhiannon’s partner or husband or whatever they called their better halves.

Roland was definitely that. Rhiannon’s better half, though Lucy would never say so aloud for fear of eliciting the vamp queen’s rage. She found herself liking Roland, though, in spite of what he was.

She’d seen little of James tonight. He’d been off with Rhiannon doing more of that training. Training for what? she wondered.

And then she wondered why she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Their encounter earlier had left her shaken and feeling things she…didn’t like feeling. Attraction. A dangerous attraction, and a stupid one. She’d never thought she would be one of those women who fell for dark, dangerous men—men who would hurt them. She’d always thought herself too smart to do something so self-destructive.

And yet, all she could think about was James and how it had seemed, for one blazing moment, as if he’d been about to kiss her.

What would have happened if he had?

She bit her lip and hoped the vampires weren’t reading her thoughts. No, they couldn’t be. It was daytime. James could, but she suspected he was either too busy or too exhausted or both. As for Brigit, Lucy didn’t think that one gave a damn
what
she might be thinking.

And she
was
tired, despite the fact that it was daylight outside. Kismet, she supposed. Her sleep patterns had been changing gradually over the last three months or so. Enough that she’d asked her doctor for a prescription to counter her tendency to lie awake with her mind racing by night, then fall asleep at her desk by day. She hadn’t brought the pills to New York City with her, though, and wished now that she’d added them to the list she’d given to Brigit.

Still, tired though she was, she didn’t allow herself to fall asleep. Not yet. Instead, she waited, lying silently in the bedroom nearest the bathroom, at the very end of the row of secret chambers, waiting until she thought the others must all be down for the count. Surely James and Brigit would sleep by day, too, since they’d both been up all night. The house was silent and utterly dark. And there was a certain change in the air when everyone else was asleep. A heaviness that was palpable. A peaceful resonance that was broken as soon as one individual stirred. She’d noticed it as a child, while sleeping in her parents’ tent in the Northern Iraqi desert on that last dig. She remembered sliding out of her bed and stepping outside, staring up at the stars and feeling that heavy silence.

The same heaviness had blanketed the dig site after everyone was dead, except that it had been even weightier, even more palpable. But just as peaceful, just as silent, as she’d hidden in the dunes, afraid to come out. She’d tried to trust that feeling that no one remained in the camp. That none of the keening gunmen were there. There was no feeling of consciousness. It had fled, just as it did when one slept. Everyone who remained, she’d told herself, was sleeping. Permanently, peacefully, sleeping.

And yet, she’d been unable to move. Maybe she’d known it would be too much to see her parents’ bullet-riddled bodies. That was one memory she was glad she didn’t have.

Sighing, she tugged her mind out of the past and focused on the task at hand: learning as much as she could about her captors. Not so that she could defeat them or even try. Just to satisfy her ever-curious mind, to educate her knowledge-ravenous brain, and to give her an edge in staying alive.

She moved carefully, trying not to make a sound, and got her cell phone and glasses from her satchel, which she’d hung on the bedpost. Then, sitting silently for a moment and listening, hearing no movement and sensing no consciousness from elsewhere in the house, she pulled the covers up over her head and turned the phone on, quickly hitting the Mute button as it powered up. She’d been sneaking in a page of Mr. Folsom’s book here and there whenever possible during the night—any time she could think of an excuse to get away from them for a few minutes. And what she had read so far fascinated her. The last time she’d had to stop, he’d been talking about the Belladonna Antigen—the rare element in her blood that was going to ensure that she died young. Before her time. It had honestly never bothered her much, knowing that. She’d always felt she had been meant to die on that dig with her family.

But she was curious to know what her blood type had to do with all of this. With vampires and government agencies and crazy old men who wrote tell-all books that got them shot.

She opened the file, found the spot where she’d left off after her last bathroom break, and began reading voraciously.

The Belladonna Antigen is a rarely occurring one, found in exceedingly few human subjects. Exact numbers are hard to come by, as a great many carriers
may go undiagnosed. The antigen doesn’t show up in typical type and cross-matching but requires more in-depth screening to detect. Belladonna sufferers do develop symptoms, but they mimic many other conditions. Carriers lack sufficient clotting factor and therefore bleed excessively, much as hemophiliacs do. Until adulthood, that’s the main and only known common symptom. Upon reaching their mid-to-late-thirties, however, other symptoms occur. A decrease in energy levels, and a general feeling of malaise and lethargy, set in. A tendency to sleep more by day and suffer from insomnia by night is an often reported but far from universal occurrence. The weakness increases, and the health of the individual continues to wane, until death ensues. Individuals with the antigen rarely live into their forties.

However, there are a few rare exceptions.

You may be wondering by now why information about a rare human condition is being included in this book about the undead. There is, in fact, a very good reason. Only those humans with the Belladonna Antigen can become vampires. Every vampire in existence today possessed this antigen as a human being.

“What?” she whispered, stunned. “My God.” She blinked in shock, before her eyes resumed speeding over the lines.

Moreover, vampires know this and have always known, even before they had a name for the condition. They sense the humans who possess the antigen with
an animalistic sixth sense that allows them to recognize their own kind, or at least their own kin. They refer to these humans as the Chosen. DPI research has shown that vampires are unwilling—perhaps even unable—to harm members of this rare human caste and in fact tend to act as guardians, stepping in to offer aid when such humans face trouble or danger.

Many of the Chosen, those who have been told none of this, have revealed, under hypnosis, suppressed memories of dark strangers intervening in times of peril and vanishing again when the individual is safe. Some have encountered the same stranger at multiple times throughout their lives. The similarities in these reports are these: The stranger always appeared by night. The memory of the victim was erased through a means that is apparently similar to post-hypnotic suggestion, though in an extremely powerful form. And the victim nearly always felt a sense of connection, of ease, with the stranger. Other similarities, though these are not universal, are reports that the stranger exhibited superhuman strength, could speak and apparently hear the victim’s replies mentally—that is, without words—and that the stranger appeared able to teleport, i.e.: move from point A to point B instantaneously. DPI research has found that this teleportation is an illusion. It is simply that vampires can move at speeds too fast for the human eye to detect. (See the actual recovered memories and session transcripts in the Case Studies Section, Appendix 2.)

She was scrolling toward the specified appendix when there was a tap on her door that nearly made her jump right out of her skin. She swallowed hard and closed the file, shut off her cell phone and quickly dropped it back into her satchel.

“Who is it?” she called, removing her glasses, setting them on the nightstand.

“It’s James.”

“Oh.” She got up, glancing down at herself. She removed the Kwan Yin pendant, draping it from the opposite bedpost and then hanging her bathrobe over it. Brigit’s minions, whoever they were, had returned with all the things on her list and then some, including that robe and several sets of pajamas. She tended to gravitate toward high thread count cotton in various pastel colors. They were cool and felt good against her skin. And yet she suddenly felt ridiculous in them.

Dumb. He was not only her captor, he wasn’t even her species.

Not according to what I just read, though. Folsom said I’m related. I have the antigen. That’s why they can’t hurt me.
“Lucy?”

So he knew, then. He knew she had the antigen, and he knew that meant she would die young. Maybe within the next eight years or so. Maybe less—since her new sleep patterns were apparently symptoms of the antigen beginning to turn active. So maybe her life expectancy was shorter than she had ever guessed. Unless, of course, she became a vampire.

She rolled her eyes at the ludicrous thought. That couldn’t possibly be true. Sighing, she pushed the disturbing thoughts of death—and undeath—from her mind and opened her bedroom door, then looked up at James. His eyes were puffy, his lids heavy. He wasn’t standing up as straight as he had before, and his hair was tousled, as if he’d been pushing his hands through it repeatedly.

“Can I come in?”

She nodded, stepping aside. He pulled a large white box from behind his back, and the smell finally hit her. Her eyes widened. “Pizza?”

“I hope you like ham and pineapple.”

Her stomach answered for her, growling in anticipation as he walked inside, looking around for a place to set it down. She hurried to the bed and straightened the covers, then sat near the headboard, legs crossed, and patted the spot in front of her. “Right here is good.”

James stood beside the bed, opened the box and held it out. She took a big slice and bit into it. The flavors exploded in her mouth, and she closed her eyes. “Oh, this is so good,” she said. And then she realized he was still standing there, just watching her. “Aren’t you going to have some?”

“Uh—right. That was the plan.” He helped himself to a slice, set the box aside and then sat on the edge of the bed and ate.

There was no more talking until they’d both finished—she’d managed to down two full slices, and he’d had three. It reassured her that her appetite was still healthy. And honestly, she felt fine. Maybe that old man was a little bit crazy after all, even if he’d been right about the existence of vampires.

“I’ll put the rest in the fridge,” James told her. “We can have it for breakfast.”

She made a face, then tried to hide it.

“What?” he asked.

Sighing, she said, “I don’t think I could eat anything that had been in that fridge.”

He rolled his eyes. “The blood is in sealed bags, Lucy. It’s not like it’s going to get on the pizza.”

“It’s still disgusting.”

“I guess you get used to it.”

“I hope I’m not here long enough for that.”

James lowered his head.

She pressed him, though. “You’re going to let me go, just like you promised, right? As soon as I’ve translated the tablet?”

“Yes.”

“And yet Brigit’s minions brought me enough clothes to last a couple of weeks. Why is that?”

He lifted his head, met her eyes, looked amused. “Minions?”

“Well, whoever she sent to get my things. Those dark beings who were lurking by the gate after we arrived, I presume.”

“Family, Lucy. They were family. She sent some of our relatives to get your things.”

She didn’t quite know what to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be offensive. I’m just not quite up on the political correctness of discussing a species I didn’t know existed. Probably using any of the old clichés is bad form. But then again, I don’t even know which ones are myths and which ones are true.”

He shrugged. “I don’t suppose I can blame you for being impatient with us.”

“No, you can’t. You broke your word to me once already when you let me believe you were taking me home, only to bring me here instead, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to trust you to keep your promise now. Clearly you intend to keep me here for as long as you need me, regardless of how badly it interferes with my life and my career. But I need to know you’ll keep your promise to let me go once I’ve translated the tablet.”

He nodded and seemed to be deep in thought for so long that she felt compelled to speak again.

“Aren’t you even going to promise me that much?”

“That was my first inclination. But the thing is, a week ago, I would have sworn I would never do anything like this. Bring you here against your will, keep you here when all you want to do is leave, force you to help us in a struggle that has very little to do with you.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t want to make a promise I may not be able to keep. I’m doing a lot of things I never would have thought myself capable of, Lucy. I don’t expect you to believe that, but I swear it’s true. I’ve always considered myself one of the good guys.”

“Then why are you behaving like one of the bad guys?”

Lifting his head, he looked her in the eye, and she saw him searching for an answer. He got up, paced away from her, seemed to gather his thoughts. Lucy closed the pizza box and set it on the floor beside the bed. Then she made herself comfortable and watched him.

“I was born with the gift of healing,” he said. “But I never knew why.”