Generation V (30 page)

Plan A—grab girl and run—had failed miserably. I now had to fall back on plan B—bluff Luca into giving up girl.

“I am really shocked at your behavior, Fortitude,” Luca was saying. “I can only imagine that it was some incredible failure on the part of your mother and older siblings that gave you the idea that it was somehow acceptable to interfere with another vampire’s hunt. Perhaps they have been lenient enough to let you take prey that you have not hunted yourself, but I am no mother cat to drag an injured mouse home for a kitten.”

I’d practiced this argument a few times in the car, trying
to draw back on the lessons I learned during those halcyon days as the second alternate on the high school debate team. The most important lesson that had been emphasized over and over to us was the importance of knowing the audience we were addressing. That had put anything that relied on appeals to inherent decency and moral behavior entirely in the trash can. What I’d ended up relying on was the one thing he did seem to value: manners. Well, vampire manners. I don’t think that Miss Manners had any sections on the proper etiquette for kidnapping.

“Amy Grann is part of my mother’s territory,” I said, trying to push down my revulsion and pretend that I was talking about a head of cabbage. Here was a moment to regret joining the Film Club rather than the Drama Club. “Removing her would be poaching, and my family will not allow you to do that.” In for a penny, in for a pound. I only hoped that if he decided to verify my story, Chivalry was the one who would answer the phone. My brother has stretched the truth to the breaking point for me before.

Luca had been pacing by the doorway, but now he stopped. His eyes narrowed. “I was granted hospitality,” he said. “Hospitality grants me the right to hunt, the same right that you and your siblings enjoy.”

“You have made excessive use of that right,” I said, feeling like I was heading down the right track. “You’ve been in my mother’s territory since Wednesday, and you’ve already killed three people.” No indignation, no outrage, I reminded myself over and over. I was discussing cabbages and a rude guest; that was how I had to force myself to look at this. “That’s more than my sister
kills in a year.” Well, I couldn’t be sure about that, but I could certainly hope so. And to my direct knowledge, so far this year she’d only killed Desiree. That was just one person. Cabbages, cabbages, cabbages. Luca was looking unconvinced, and I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a thick rolled stack of printed-out articles and newspaper clippings that I’d prepared beforehand. I threw it down on the bed, where it lay in bizarre contrast to the rose petals. “Do you have any understanding of how utterly sloppy you’ve been?” I pressed. “This is just a tiny sampling of the kind of coverage that your activities are receiving. The local press is hysterical, and you’ve left behind a mess that we will be dealing with for a long time. Hospitality might give you the same rights as we enjoy, but it also demands the same restrictions, and my mother is very displeased with your actions.” I really hoped that that last part was true.

Luca looked a little less certain now. “These matters are handled somewhat differently in Italy,” he admitted. He frowned a little. “I had assumed that your mother had more control over the police, and that she would’ve directed them to some kind of arrest by now.”

“My mother’s control over the police is entirely sufficient in normal, restrained circumstances,” I said, making my voice as cold and disapproving as possible. “But an unidentified dumped body, followed by a bloody home invasion coupled with two abductions and a subsequent murder? People are talking about a serial murderer, and there are calls for the FBI to get involved. Your actions have been utterly unacceptable.”

Luca looked outright nervous now. “I had not considered it that way.”

“A mistake any traveler could make,” I assured him. “Now I’ll just retrieve the girl and be on my way, and I’ll make sure that my mother knows that you were doing your best to act in good faith.”

His eyes narrowed at the reference to Amy, and he gave me a very sharp look. I kicked myself for bringing her up too soon. “It is unnecessary to concern yourself with my bit of baggage,” he said smoothly. “What is out of sight will soon be out of mind, and it would be easiest for me to simply take her with me to where no one will ever recognize her. I am of course deeply apologetic for the difficulty that my actions have caused for your family, but I would never expect your mother to have to take the trouble to dispose of my little Amy herself.”

“A missing child will bring in too much attention,” I countered desperately. I could feel plan B circling the toilet, and I knew that I was grasping at straws now to save it. “And you have no chance of getting her out of the country. They put out an AMBER Alert this morning—there are people in every airport looking for her.”

Luca gave a superior little chuckle, and all signs of concern were erased from his face. “If that is your mother’s concern, then assure her that it is nothing. I have already acquired the paperwork that will say that she is my daughter, along with the drugs to keep her quiet and cooperative while I am traveling. And if I am questioned, well,
my
father has the police well under control in Naples. One phone call will confirm that all is well, and your mother’s problem will be swept under the rug. This one has no family left, and soon enough attention will turn to other tragedies, and my little pet will be utterly forgotten.”

He was certain now, confident, and began to walk closer to me. I stepped back, automatically putting myself between him and Amy. I couldn’t think of any other lies that could save her; all I could do was blurt out, “No.”

Luca arched one debonair eyebrow. “No?”

“No,” I repeated. There was no going back from this, and I took a deep breath. “You can’t take her.”

Luca’s expression was past suspicious. “Why has your mother sent the least among her children to creep into my home like a thief?” he asked slowly, his eyes never leaving my face. There was a pause, one that I didn’t dare fill; then he nodded, certain now. “Your mother does not know you are here, does she?”

“You aren’t taking Amy anywhere,” I said, not moving.

“This is ridiculous and I do not have time for your playacting,” he said impatiently. “I have a number of activities planned for this evening, and if you continue to interfere in my business I will not hesitate to administer the discipline that your mother has obviously neglected.”

I drew my gun and pointed it right at his head. “I’m very serious,” I said. “You aren’t going to take Amy.”

Luca was completely shocked. His mouth dropped open and he gaped at me for a long moment; then he began to laugh hysterically, gesturing at me, miming me drawing the gun, as if this was the funniest thing he had ever seen. I didn’t say anything, just adjusted my stance and held the gun in a solid two-handed grip, careful never to lose my target, which was right between his eyes. I’d learned my lesson with Phillip—a stopping shot in this situation needed to be a kill shot.

“My little American cousin,” Luca finally said, still
gasping for breath between the last trickles of laughter, “I believe that you have been watching too many John Wayne movies.” He smiled. I didn’t. “Put the gun down,” he said.

I cocked it, the sound loud in the suddenly quiet room.

The smile slowly oozed off Luca’s face, and now there was something very dangerous looking back at me. He meant business now. “Put it down.”

My fear was gone. It was if I’d finally overloaded myself on it, and now it didn’t even exist at all. There was no shaking in my hands, no confusion. The gray areas of morality that had forced me to sit and eat dinner at the same table as the woman who had killed my foster parents had no place here. Good was behind me, evil was in front of me, and now I had the means to do something about it. “This is your last warning,” I said, and I meant it.

“You appear to misunderstand the situation.” Luca’s voice was vicious and velvet soft. “This is
your
last warning.”

I sighted down and shot, my arms barely able to absorb the kick from the .45, which was significantly more than I’d ever experienced with the .38, but the bullet went right where I’d aimed it. But Luca was already moving, and the bullet hit the wall that had just moments before been where his head had been. I reacted, too slow, turning the gun to fire again, but Luca was already at my side, and he slammed one hand down hard on my wrists, loosening my grip enough that he could pull the gun out of my hands. With speed I couldn’t even dream of matching, he brought the gun whistling back across my face, bludgeoning me with a force that sent a
bright shock of pain through my cheek; then his other hand was wrapped around the front of my shirt and with one flex of his arm I was flying through the air, thrown out the open doorway and into the living room. I fell hard, my hip slamming into an end table and sending a lamp to the floor in a shower of porcelain pieces. For a moment my body was a single throb of confused pain, but then I blinked and it was all in my back and hip, and I struggled to draw a breath into my shocked lungs, which had had all the wind knocked out of them.

Luca walked out of the bedroom, now moving at a human-paced stroll. He held the gun in one hand loosely, like some filthy object you might find on your car after you leave it parked overnight in a bad area, staring at it with utter distaste. I rolled, struggling, forcing my body to move, and managed to haul myself up to my hands and knees.

“That a vampire would even imagine to carry a human weapon like this is utterly incomprehensible,” he said, still looking at the gun. In my first year of college I’d lived in a coed dorm, and one day there had been a whole group of boys gathered around a trash can, staring at a used tampon with just that expression of revolted fascination. Then he shifted that look over to me. “You’re still an infant,” Luca said, and now I was clearly the tampon. “Barely more than a human. Look at you, crawling and mewling. I could crush you right now. It’s only as a favor to your mother, despite her useless advice, that I’ll let you walk away at all. But perhaps”—and now his eyes narrowed and his voice became coldly thoughtful—“a lesson might be in order.”

I was struggling to get to my feet when Luca slammed
one hand into my lower back, smashing me down to the floor again. I tried to roll away, but not fast enough to escape it when he kicked me in the side with enough force that I fell back. What followed was a horribly systematic beating, utterly unlike my earlier experiences with my muggers or even with Phillip. Luca hit me with his open hands, not fists, and he wasn’t wearing shoes, but he knew just how much force to put behind each strike so that it hurt, and I stayed down. He toyed with me, so that when I managed to slap away a hit coming down to my face, it would turn out to be a feint, and that the real strike was a kick to my kidneys. If I pulled away from a kick, it put me directly in line for a slap to my throat. Even as I struggled, and flailed, I knew that I had no way of stopping this, and that if I just rolled up and went limp it would probably end a lot sooner, but I couldn’t make myself do that. Not with Amy in another room.

Then one moment came when he leaned in just a little too close, and by more luck than design one of my fists caught him across that perfect nose. He pulled back with an outraged snarl, and before I had any chance to feel a sense of pride at my Pyrrhic victory, he’d shot out a hand to grip my right forearm and lift me completely off the floor.

He squeezed, just tightly enough that I could actually feel the bone begin to bend under the pressure, and he held it there, just a hairbreadth from the point where it would have to break.

“Stupid child,” he spat in my face. “What were you imagining, coming here and threatening my property? What could something as weak as you
possibly
hope to do to me?”

There was a roaring in my head when he called Amy his property, when he reduced her to something without value or spirit or worth, and for a moment all I could think of was Prudence and the way that she had treated my foster parents’ death as a particularly monotonous chore, with no sense of remorse or even awareness of their humanity. Or the way that Maria had looked when she walked out the door of my mother’s mansion, walking to her death and not even caring anymore after God only knows how many years of being treated like nothing more than an object to bite or abuse, with that last little spasm of hope she’d shown when I’d grabbed her so completely crushed, about to be thrown away now that she wasn’t useful anymore. And it didn’t matter what had just happened to my body; I
needed
to hurt Luca somehow. To make him lose something. And fortunately enough, I had a way.

Blood from my nose had run into my mouth, but I spat it out and asked, in the most taunting voice I could muster, “Where’s Phillip today, Luca?” Luca froze, and I laughed, even while more blood ran down my face. “Ooh, big bad vampire doesn’t know where his pet is,” I heckled. “Someone went out last night and never came home, didn’t he?”

Luca was pissed. In an instant his eyes were completely black, cold, and lethal. He threw me back against the wall, and I knew on impact that this time he hadn’t been holding back. A lot of drywall dust came with me as I slid down, and from the lightning pain running up my back I knew that I wasn’t getting up after this. “And what do
you
know about my creature?” Luca demanded, stalking forward.

My voice was high and singsong when I said, “Should’ve put tags on your pet. According to the Humane Society, only five percent of lost cats ever make it back home.”

Luca’s hand flashed down and wrapped around my shirtfront again, shaking me with a force that rattled my brains. “Idiot!” he yelled, and when he spoke again I could see that those needle fangs were now fully extended. “I felt Phillip die last night. What did your family do?”

I smiled up at him. “Not them. Me. I killed Phillip.”

Luca screamed, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. The hand dropped from my shirt, and he slammed his fists into the wall above my head, sending down a rain of dust and chunks of drywall. “Twenty years!” He drove his fists in over and over, all control gone. “Twenty years to craft! Twenty years of feeding my own blood into those wretches, of watching them twitch and die and
waste my blood
! Twenty years of feeding from my father like an infant so that the experiments could continue! All to make
one creature
!” He screamed one last time, and then just stood, all action stopped, his breath heaving in and out, spittle gleaming whitely from his lips.