Dark Angel; The Chosen; Soulmate (30 page)

I
hate
him, she thought, and this was true. She did hate him for what he was doing to her. He made her feel unmoored and adrift. Confused. Helpless.

She understood why those girls were clustered around him, longing to fling themselves into his darkness like a bunch of virgin sacrifices jumping into a volcano. I mean, what else do you
do
with a guy like that? she thought.

Kill him. It would be the only solution even if he weren't a vampire, she decided with sudden insane cheer. Because prolonged contact with that smile was obviously going to
annihilate
her.

Rashel blinked rapidly, getting a grip on herself. All right. Concentrate on that, on the job to be done. She was going to have to kill him, but not now; right now she had to get herself chosen.

Walking carefully on her heels, she went over to join Quinn's group.

He didn't see her at first. He was facing Daphne and a couple of other girls, laughing frequently—too frequently. He
looked wild and a little feverish to Rashel. A sort of devilish Mad Hatter at an insane tea party.

“… and I just felt so totally awful that I didn't get to meet you,” Daphne was saying, “and I just wish I knew what
happened
, because it was just so seriously weird…”

She was telling her story, Rashel realized. At least none of the people listening seemed openly suspicious.

“I haven't seen you here before,” came a voice behind her.

It belonged to a striking girl with dark hair, very pale skin, and eyes like amber or topaz… or a hawk's. Rashel froze, every muscle tensing, trying to keep her face expressionless.

Another vampire.

She was sure of it. The camellia-petal skin, the light in the eyes… this must be the girl vampire who'd brought Daphne food in the warehouse.

“No, this is my first time,” Rashel said, making her voice light and eager. “My name's Shelly.” It was close enough to her own name that she would turn automatically if anyone said it.

“I'm Lily.” The girl said it without warmth, and those hawklike eyes continued to bore straight into Rashel's.

Rashel had to struggle to stay on her feet.

It's
Lily Redfern
, she thought, working desperately to keep an idiot smile plastered on her face. I know it is. How many Lilys can there be who'd be working with Quinn?

I've got a Redfern right here in front of me. I've got Hunter Redfern's
daughter
here.

For an instant she was tempted to simply make a dash for her knife. Killing a celebrity like Lily seemed almost worth giving up the enclave.

But on the other hand, Hunter Redfern was a moderate sort of vampire, with a lot of influence on the Night World Council. He helped keep other vampires in line. Striking at him through his daughter would just make him mad, and then he might start listening to the Councilors who wanted to slaughter humans in droves.

And Rashel would lose any hope of getting at the heart of the slave trade, where the real scum were.

I hate politics, Rashel thought. But she was already beaming at Lily, prattling for all she was worth. “It was my friend Marnie who told me about this place, and I'm really glad I came because it's even better than I thought, and I've got this poem I wrote—”

“Really. Well, I'm dying
not
to hear it,” Lily said. Her hawklike eyes had lost interest. Her face was filled with open contempt—she'd dismissed Rashel as a hopeless fawning idiot. She walked away without glancing back.

Two tests passed. One to go.

“That's what I like about Lily. She's just so absolutely cold,” a girl beside Rashel said. She had wavy bronze hair and beestung lips. “Hi, I'm Juanita,” she added.

And she's serious, Rashel thought as she introduced herself. Quinn's group had noticed her at last, and they all seemed
to agree with Juanita. They were fascinated by Lily's cold personality, her lack of feeling. They saw it as strength.

Yeah, because feeling hurts. Maybe I should worship her, too, Rashel thought. She was finding too many things in common with these girls.

“Lily the Ice Princess,” another girl murmured. “It's like she's not even really from earth at all. It's like she's from another planet.”

“Hold that thought,” a new voice said, a crisp, laughing, slightly insane voice. The effect it had on Rashel was remarkable. It made her back stiffen and sent tingles up her palms. It closed her throat.

Okay, test number three, she thought, drawing on every ounce of discipline she'd learned in the martial arts. Don't lose
zanshin
. Stay loose, stay frosty, and go with it. You can do this.

She turned to meet Quinn's eyes.

Or not to meet them so much as graze past them, before concentrating on his chin. She didn't dare stare directly into them for long.

“Maybe she
is
from another planet,” Quinn was saying to the girl. “Maybe she's not human. Maybe I'm not, either.”

That's right, Rashel thought. Make fun of them by telling them a truth they won't believe.

But, she noticed, Quinn looked more as if he didn't care what they found out than as if he were mocking them. “Maybe she's from another
world
. Did you ever think of that?”

Rashel was confused again. Quinn seemed to be trying to get himself killed. He appeared to be verging on telling these girls about the Night World, and under the laws of the Night World, that was punishable by death.

You're really slipping, Rashel thought. First the slave
trade, now this. I thought you were supposed to be such a stickler for the law.

“There are darker dimensions,” Quinn was confiding to the group, “than you have ever imagined. But, you see, it's all part of life's grand design, so
it's all right
. Did you know”—he put his arm around a girl's shoulders, gesturing outward as if inviting her to look at some horizon—“that there's a certain kind of wasp that lays its eggs in the body of a caterpillar? A live caterpillar. And it stays alive, you see, while the eggs hatch and the little waspettes eat it from the inside out. Now, who do you think invented that?”

Rashel wondered if vampires could get drunk.

“That would probably be the most horrible way to die,” Daphne chimed in, her musical voice ghoulish. “Being eaten by insects. Or maybe being burned.”

“It would probably depend on how fast you burned,” Quinn said meditatively. “A flash of fire—high enough temperature—you burn the nerves out in the first few seconds. Slow baking would be different.”

“I'm writing a poem about fire,” Rashel said. She was surprised to find that she was annoyed because Quinn didn't really seem to have noticed her. On second thought, she
should
be annoyed; her plan depended on him not only noticing but choosing her.

She was going to have to capture his attention.

“Do you have it with you?” Daphne was asking helpfully.

“No, but I can tell you the beginning,” Rashel said. She braced herself to look at Quinn as she recited:

“There's warmth in ice; there's cooling peace in fire,
And midnight light to show us all the way.
The dancing flame becomes a funeral pyre;
The Dark was more enticing than the Day.”

Quinn blinked. Then he smiled, and he looked Rashel over, clearly taking notice of the velvet jumpsuit and ending with her face. He looked everywhere… except into her eyes.

“That's right; you've got it,” he said with that same brittle exhilaration. “And there's plenty of dark out there for
everyone
.”

Rashel's worry that he might look too deep if he met her gaze was groundless. Quinn didn't seem to be really seeing anybody here.

“There
is
plenty of darkness,” Rashel said. She moved toward him, feeling strangely brave. Her instincts sensed a weakness in him, a flaw. “It's everywhere. It's inescapable. So the only thing we can do is embrace it.” She was standing right in front of him now, looking at his mouth. “If we hold it close, it won't hurt so much.”

“Well. Exactly.” Quinn showed his teeth, but it wasn't the manic smile. It was a grimace. He didn't look happy anymore; suddenly, for just an instant, he looked tired and sick. He was almost leaning away from Rashel.

“I came here so I could do that,” Rashel said in a sultry voice. She was scaring herself a little. In the name of the charade, she was doing everything she could to seduce him—but it was surprisingly easy and surprisingly enjoyable. There was a sort of tingling all over her body, as if the jumpsuit had picked up a charge.

“I came to look for the darkness,” she said. Softly.

Quinn laughed abruptly. The feverish good humor came flooding back. “And you found it,” he said. He went on laughing and laughing, and he reached out to touch Rashel's cheek.

Don't let him touch you!

The thought flashed through Rashel's mind and communicated to her muscles in an instant. Without knowing how she knew, she was certain that if he touched her, it would all be over. It was skin-to-skin contact that had nearly fried every circuit in her brain before.

She danced back from his fingertips and smiled teasingly, while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.

“This place is so crowded,” she said throatily.

“Huh? Oh. Then why don't we schedule something more private? I could pick you up tomorrow night. Say seven o'clock in the parking lot.”

Bingo.

“But Quinn.” It was Daphne, looking aggrieved. “You told
me
to meet you tomorrow.” She trembled her chin.

Quinn stared at her, and for once, Rashel could read
his face easily. He was thinking that anybody
that
stupid deserved it.

“Well, you can both come,” he said expansively. “Why not? The more the merrier.”

He walked away laughing and laughing.

Rashel watched him go, resisting an impulse to shake her head. She'd done it; she'd passed the last test and been chosen. So why was her heart still pounding?

She glanced out of the side of her eye at Daphne. “Well, I don't know about anybody else, but I've had enough excitement for tonight.” She went to get her coat, with the rest of Quinn's coterie glaring jealously after her.

She had one enjoyable experience on the way out. Ivan, still slouching, tried to stop her at the door.

“Shelly, hey. I thought we were going to get to know each other better.”

Rashel didn't need him anymore; she had her invitation. “I'd rather get to know a head louse,” she said in her sweet chatty voice, and she stepped on his foot hard with her high heel.

In the car, she waited a full twenty minutes, watching the front of the club, before Daphne joined her.

“Sorry, but I didn't want anybody to think we were leaving together.”

“You did a great job,” Rashel said, driving away. “You even managed to get both of us invited to meet Quinn together—
that was dangerous, but it worked. The only thing that surprised me is that he invited us in front of everybody. Is that how he did it before?”

“No. Not at all. Last time, he sort of whispered it to me when nobody was around. But, you know, nothing was normal tonight. I mean, he usually asks new girls questions—I guess to figure out if they have families who'll miss them. And he isn't usually that—that…”

“Manic?”

“Yeah. I wonder what's going on with him?”

Rashel pressed her lips together and stared straight ahead through the windshield.

“You sure you want to go through with this?”

It was Sunday night and they were nearing the parking lot of the Crypt.

“I've told you and told you,” Daphne said, “I'm ready. I can do it.”

“Okay. But, listen, if there's any trouble, I want you to run. Run away from the club and don't look back for me. All right?”

Daphne nodded. At Rashel's suggestion, she was wearing something more sensible tonight: black pants heavy enough to provide some warmth, a dark sweater, and shoes she could run in. Rashel was dressed the same way, except that she was wearing high boots. The knife was in one.

“You go first,” Rashel said, parking a street away from the club. “I'll come in a minute.”

She watched Daphne walk away, hoping she wasn't going to get this little blond bunny killed.

She herself was the danger. Quinn was going to use mind control on them to get them to go to the warehouse quietly. And Rashel wasn't sure what would happen when he did it.

Just don't let him touch you, she told herself. You can carry it off as long as he doesn't touch you.

Five minutes later, she started toward the Crypt.

Quinn was in the dark parking lot, standing by a silvery-gray Lexus. As Rashel reached the car, she saw the pale blob of Daphne's face through the window.

“I almost thought you weren't coming.” There was now a sort of savagery mixed in with Quinn's lunatic good humor. As if he was angry she wasn't smart enough to save herself.

“Oh, I wouldn't miss this for the world.” Rashel kept her eyes on the car. She wanted to get this over with. “Are we going somewhere?”

There was that tiny hesitation that seemed to come every time she spoke to him, as if it were taking him a minute to focus. Or as if he were trying to figure something out, she thought nervously.

Then he answered smoothly, “Oh, right, get in.”

Rashel got in. She glanced once at Daphne in the backseat. Daphne said, “What's up?” in a chirpy voice laced with feminine rivalry.

Good girl.

Quinn was getting in the driver's side. Once the door was shut, he turned the engine on to run the heater. The windows immediately began to fog.

Rashel sat in a state of continuing mind, ready for the unexpected at any moment.

Only the unexpected didn't come. Nothing came. Quinn was just sitting there in the driver's seat.