Blood Born (30 page)

Looking at Kate made him forget about thinking someone had called him. It was just a dream, was all. Kate, on the other hand, wasn’t a dream, at least not in that sense. One day soon he was going to have to introduce her to his folks. They’d been dating almost a year now, seriously and exclusively for the past seven months. He loved her; he had no doubt about it. She was the one. As soon as he graduated and had a job, he was going to ask her to marry him.

Jimmy was about to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. Kate kept changing her major, but she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to be a ghost-hunter. Okay, so they didn’t exactly have a clear and easy path ahead of them. They’d make it work. He liked that she pulled him away from the solid, logical world of engineering. They balanced each other; he’d keep everything in order and running, and she’d make life fun.

He’d been holding off introducing Kate to his parents because she was what his dad would call a flake. She believed in things that couldn’t be seen; she owned her own tarot cards and a freakin’ crystal ball; she was positive the two of them had been lovers in a former life. At first he’d thought all that woowoo crap was a quirk he could live with, as long as it didn’t get out of hand, but he’d seen some freaky stuff in the past few months that had kind of made a believer out of him. The tarot cards were too often right on the money, and one night a few weeks back Kate had gotten some very specific information about a lost earring, using a small crystal dangling from a string to contact her spirit guide.

Finding the earring, which had been lost in the couch cushions for weeks, was a cute trick, but there was more—some of it not so much fun. War was coming, according to Kate’s cards and the spirit guide. Unfortunately, the information she was able to get about this war hadn’t been nearly specific enough. As far as Jimmy could tell, there was always a war somewhere, so he was less impressed with that. Any damn fool could say “there’s war coming.” The thing was, though, Kate wasn’t a fool.

She kept telling him that he had a sparkling aura, that he was a psychic of some sort. He didn’t know how he felt about that. Wasn’t a sparkling aura kind of, well, gay? She’d said a hundred times that she’d be glad to help him discover and hone his talent, but he was putting that off even though he suspected that maybe she was right. There were times when he just
knew
things. He’d take a different route for some reason, and later find out there’d been an accident on the road he usually drove. He’d instinctively grab his weatherproof jacket on a perfectly beautiful day, and it would come in handy when a sudden rain shower popped up that afternoon.

All his life, but particularly in the past year, he’d been told he often reacted a moment sooner than he should. He’d start to turn around a split-second
before
someone called his name, or brake just
before
the kid on the bicycle or a dog ran in front of his car. He’d ignored those oddities all his life, but Kate wouldn’t allow him to continue to turn a blind eye.

The truth of the matter was, Jimmy didn’t want to be different. He didn’t want to hone any talent that made him a freak.

He lay beside her, staring into the darkness. Now that he was awake, he couldn’t shut off his brain again. He’d known for weeks that it was time to go home for a visit—past time, really. Something was going on there. His mother always called him a couple of times every week, but lately her voice was strained, and for the past couple of weeks she’d been calling from her cell, not the home phone. She’d finally admitted that she was staying with her parents for a while. What was going on? He hadn’t talked to his dad for more than a month, and that wasn’t normal. His mother assured Jimmy that his dad was okay, even though he hadn’t been answering his phone.

There was definitely a problem at home. Jimmy wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it was, didn’t want to get involved. His mom and dad were adults, and they’d been married twenty-five years. They’d work things out themselves. Every couple had their bad times, he supposed. He’d give them some space, for a while.

Maybe
they
were okay, but there was some other kind of trouble. He felt a deep uneasiness, and in the night silence he heard the echo of the voice that had called his name.

Gently he touched Kate’s hair, wishing she was awake, but not wanting to be the one who woke her. He couldn’t go back to sleep. Everything in him, every
instinct, was screaming that something was very wrong, but for the life of him, he had no clue what that something might be.

    Nevada stood beneath the hot shower spray, hoping that here she wouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted—for a while, at least. She couldn’t stay here all night or someone might come in to check on her. No, someone
would
. Since Sorin had left there had been two new female guards who’d delivered food and checked on her progress through the night. They were slightly less frightening than Loman, but only slightly.

She was doing this without the book of spells, but she remembered the words, and maybe she didn’t need to actually be touching the book. Maybe that was just a habit she’d fallen into. If it was, she needed to know, so she wouldn’t think she had to have the book right at hand. She closed her eyes, focused, and because now she knew exactly where her family was being held, her spirit went there immediately. She held her breath, looked around. The low-watt bulb overhead still burned, but they were all asleep. She hoped they stayed that way, all except for Emily.

Her dad and Justin slept on the floor, huddled on pallets, each covered by a single thin blanket. Their mother had one cot, Emily the other. Maybe they slept that way all the time, or maybe they took turns with the two cots. Knowing her family, Nevada bet they took turns. Nevada concentrated on her sister. She wasn’t sure how long she’d be here, wasn’t even certain she could make contact.

“Emily,” she whispered as she touched her little sister’s cheek. “Wake up, but for God’s sake, be quiet about it.”

Emily stirred, slapped at the place where Nevada’s hand touched, and tried to turn away.

“Come on,” Nevada whispered, “I need you to hear me.”

Emily’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked right at Nevada. “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

Nevada put a finger to her sister’s lips. “Shhhh. They can’t know I’m here.”

“You’re not here, not really,” Emily whispered. She came more fully awake, gave Nevada a scandalized look. “And you’re naked!”

“I’m in the shower. I don’t know how long I can stay, so listen carefully. Don’t let anyone know that we can talk this way.”

“But Mom …”

“No one,” Nevada insisted. “The vampires will sense any change in their attitudes, they’ll see … hope. We can’t let them know that you have a gift, or that I can travel this way.”

“You’ll come back, won’t you?” Emily said.

“As soon as I can.”

“I have so much to ask you … wait, you’re already fading …”

Nevada found herself fully in the shower, wet, naked, crying. She slapped a hand against the wet tile wall to steady herself. To stay with her sister and communicate was harder than she’d thought it would be. Doing it consistently, being able to control it, was going to take more practice.

She didn’t know how long she’d been in the shower, but the water wasn’t exactly hot now, so she figured she didn’t have much longer before they checked on her. She stepped out of the increasingly cooler water, but left it running. She didn’t have much more time, but she wanted to reach out to Chloe, the conduit who was, or had been, the target of the vampires. Knowing what the woman looked like, that she was close by, that they had connected once before, should make it
easy. Closing her eyes, she pulled in her energy, refocused it, concentrated.

But either Nevada had depleted her resources in visiting Emily, or Chloe was already lost, because there wasn’t even a flicker of connection.

She turned off the water, dragged herself from the shower. Her efforts had left her completely exhausted. She wanted to sleep, to get lost in good dreams and memories, but she never had good dreams now.

Sorin had sometimes tried to reassure her, but no matter what he said about her future, she had all but lost hope for her own freedom. Still, if she could see her family free she’d consider that a victory. It was likely the only victory she’d have.

“Pack a bag. We need to leave before sundown.”

Chloe gave him a cool look. “This bonded thing doesn’t mean I have to obey you, you know.”

Luca sighed. “I know. Believe me, I know.”

He sounded so long-suffering that Chloe had to smile. She thought she’d been very accommodating since that whole bonding blood and sex thing—if by “accommodating” she meant having sex until she didn’t know if she could do it again any time within the next decade. Vampires had unbelievable stamina … at least Luca did. She, on the other hand, was human, and she’d had enough for a while.

The most disconcerting thing wasn’t the sex, it was the care and concern she felt for him. If anyone could take care of himself, it was Luca, but logic didn’t make any difference to how she felt. She pointed at the window. “The sun’s shining, in case you haven’t noticed. It’ll continue to shine for several more hours. Won’t you explode or melt or something if we go outside?”

“No,” he said patiently.

“Another common misconception, I suppose, like not being able to see your reflection in a mirror or the whole dead and cold thing.”

By now Chloe knew very well that he was neither dead nor cold. “Exactly,” he said in a dry tone.

She was delaying, and he knew it. Even worse, she knew that he knew it. All the logical reasons in the world didn’t change the fact that she was leaving the house she loved, a job she loved, and she didn’t know when or if she’d ever be able to return. She had worried at the problem all day, both aloud with him, and privately with herself: she could call her boss and arrange for some time off, but she had only two weeks of vacation time and taking both weeks back to back would really put him in a bind, especially on such short notice. If she was gone beyond those two weeks she probably wouldn’t have a job to come back to.

Unfortunately, that might not matter, to either her or her boss. If the vampires succeeded, none of the humans were safe.

She trailed her hand over the arm of the couch, pensively looked around. The house wasn’t a showplace; her furnishings were ordinary, chosen more for comfort than style, but the place was hers. “They can eventually find me, no matter where I am.”

“Eventually, yes. But we can buy time. Moving every so often is probably our best bet; you’ll be safer when I have to feed or sleep if they’re constantly playing catch-up.”

He didn’t sugarcoat things for her. No matter how bad things were, Chloe faced them. Now that they were bonded and she was his in a soul-deep way she hadn’t been able to understand before, he could feel her waves of emotion as if they were his own. He hadn’t experienced emotions like this since Ena; no, not even with Ena, because that poor girl not only hadn’t remembered him, her life had been far simpler than Chloe’s was. Chloe’s inner turmoil reminded him forcefully why he’d bonded with a human only once: human
emotions were messy and irrational, and led to problems that could be avoided if they operated on simple logic.

Chloe was a tangle of emotions at the moment. Despite the concern he felt coming from her, she both hated and loved him, those two strong emotions so entangled she couldn’t separate them. She was scared and angry; one part of her wanted to hide, while another part wanted to wage war on those who’d brought this to her: on all the rebels, on Sorin, on Luca himself. She’d recognized the necessity of bonding, but at the same time she hated that she was dependent upon him for her safety, hated that they were so tied together even though she reveled in parts of that bond. Sex between a bonded vampire and human was … combustible.

He didn’t know what the future held. If Chloe survived, the only thing that would lessen the hold of their bond was if there was a great distance between them, and even then he would always long for her, and she for him. He didn’t know if they could build any sort of life together, given that they were two different species. All of those questions would have to wait until the rebel uprising had played out, one way or the other. It went against his grain, his instincts, to wait for them to make a move. His next course of action, then, was to take the fight to them.

    Regina smiled at Benedict as he made an argument for increasing their efforts to bring Luca in for questioning. Idiot. The entire Council was in a tizzy because their assassin had gone missing. Her people had been able to find him, but she wasn’t about to share that information. Even if the Council somehow succeeded, no one forced Luca to do anything. Who were they kidding?

The Council members would be disturbed by the report that their assassin had decided to take up with a human, but she didn’t tell them that, either. Just the fact that he wasn’t answering their calls had them in a snit. What would they say if they knew he’d sided with a human over his own kind? It was all she could do not to laugh out loud. The Council had become what they’d once despised: bureaucrats. They were so entrenched in their laws that they’d been all but defanged.

The early hour of this meeting was a testament to the depths of their concern. They should be sleeping, resting, feeding in luxury and solitude until well after dark. Even though the sun didn’t shine here, they all felt the rise and setting of the sun within. They were, and always would be, true creatures of the night. After dark they were all stronger, sharper, better. But instead of lazing away the afternoon hours they were all here, gathered around the familiar table trying to make sense of the latest disturbances in their world.

“First Ambrus comes to us with a tale of rebellion and conveniently discovers Hector’s murder, and then he disappears. What are we supposed to think?” Benedict leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps he’s a part of this rebellion. It makes sense to suppose that Luca himself killed Hector and disposed of Enoch because Enoch knew too much.”