Dark Angel; The Chosen; Soulmate (34 page)

“Anne-lise and Keiko in front,” Daphne said. “Missy right here. Let's go.”

“I can't unlock it. I can't. They'll kill me,” Rudi muttered, as Rashel moved him up the stairs.

“Rudi, look at these young women.” Rashel swung him around so he had a good view of the prisoners behind him. They stood in one tense, clear-eyed, lightly breathing mass. “Rudi, if you don't unlock that door, I am going to tie you up
and leave you alone with them… and this silver knife. I promise, whatever the vampires do to you won't be worse.”

Rudi stared at the girls, who stared back at him. All ages, all sizes, united.

“I'll unlock the door.”

“Good boy.”

He fumbled getting the door open. When it was done, Rashel pushed him through first, looking tensely around. If there were vampires here, she had to change tactics fast.

The kitchen was empty—and music was blasting from somewhere inside the house. Rashel gave a quick savage grin. It was a lucky break she wouldn't have dared to pray for. The music might just save these girls' lives.

She pulled Rudi out of the way and nodded to Daphne.

Daphne stood at the head of the stairs, silently waving the girls out. Fayth led the way with the Valkyrie Anne-lise and the tiny Keiko behind her. The other girls hurried past, and Rashel was proud of how quiet they were.

“Now,” she whispered, pushing Rudi back into the stairwell. “One last question. Who's throwing the bloodfeast?”

Rudi shook his head.

“Who hired you? Who bought the slaves? Who's the client, Rudi?”

“I don't know! I'm telling you! Nobody knows who hired us. It was all done on the phone!”

Rashel hesitated. She wanted to keep questioning him—
but right now the important thing was to get the girls off the island.

Daphne was still waiting in the kitchen, watching Rashel.

Rashel looked at her and then helplessly at Rudi's bushy brown head. She should kill him. It was the only smart thing to do, and it was what she'd planned to do. He was a conspirator in the plan to brutally murder twenty-four teenage girls—and he enjoyed it.

But Daphne was watching. And Fayth would give her that
look
if she heard Rashel had done him in.

Rashel let out her breath. “Sleep tight,” she said, and hit Rudi on the head with the hilt of her knife.

He slumped unconscious and she shut the cellar door on him. She turned quickly to Daphne. “Let's go.”

Daphne almost skipped ahead of her. They went out the back door and picked up the hiking path.

Rashel moved swiftly, loping across the beaten-down wild grass. She caught up to the string of girls.

“That's it, Missy,” she whispered. “Nice and quiet. Nyala, you're limping; does your leg hurt? A little faster, everybody.”

She made her way up to the front. “Okay, Anne-lise and Keiko. When we get there, I'll take care of the guard. Then you know what to do.”

“Find which boats we can handle. Destroy whatever we can on the others and set them adrift. Then each take half the girls and head west,” Anne-lise said.

“Right. If you can't make it to land, do your best and then call the Coast Guard.”

“But not right away,” Keiko put in. “Lots of islanders use ship-to-shore radio instead of telephones. The vampires may be monitoring it.”

Rashel squeezed her shoulder. “Smart girl. I knew you were right for the job. And remember, if you
do
call the Coast Guard, don't give the right name of the boat and don't mention this island.” It was perfectly possible that there were Night People in the Coast Guard.

They were almost at the bottom of the cliff, and so far no alarms had sounded. Rashel scanned the moving group again, then became aware that Daphne was behind her.

“Everything okay?”

“So far,” Daphne said breathlessly. She added, “You're good at this, you know. Encouraging them and all.”

Rashel shook her head. “I'm just trying to keep them together until they're not my problem anymore.”

Daphne smiled. “I think that's what I just said.”

The wharf was below them, the boats bobbing quietly. The ocean was calm and glassy. Silver moonlight gave the scene a postcard look. Ye Olde Quaint Marina, Rashel thought.

She loped to the front again. “Stay behind me, all of you.” She added to Daphne, “I'll show you what I'm good at.”

A few feet of rocks and sand and she was on the wharf.
Eyes on the shack, knife ready, she moved silently. She wanted to take care of the werewolf without noise, if possible.

Then a dark shape came hustling out of the shack into the moonlight. It took one look at Rashel and threw back its head to howl.

Rashel knew she had to stop the guard before he could make a sound. The vampires' mansion was on the farther cliffs, overlooking open sea rather than the harbor, and the music ought to help drown outside noises—but the greatest danger was still that they would be heard before the girls could get away.

She launched herself at the werewolf, throwing a front snap kick to his chest. She could hear the air whoosh out as he fell backward. Good. No breath for howling. She landed with both knees on top of him.

“This is silver,” she hissed, pressing the blade against his throat. “Don't make a noise or I'll use it.”

He glared at her. He had shaggy hair and eyes that were already half-animal.

“Is there anybody on the boats?” When he didn't answer, she pressed the silver knife harder.
“Is there?”

He snarled a breathless “No.” His teeth were turning, too, spiking and lengthening.

“Don't change—” Rashel began, but at that moment he decided to throw her off. He heaved once, violently.

A snap of her wrist would have plunged the silver blade into his throat even as she fell. Instead Rashel rolled backward in a somersault, tucking in her head and ending up on her right knee. Then, as the werewolf jumped at her, she slammed the sheathed knife upward against his jaw.

He fell back unconscious.

Too bad, I wanted to ask him about the client. Rashel looked shoreward, to see that Daphne, Anne-lise, and Nyala were on the pier with her. They were each holding a rock or a piece of wood broken from the jagged pilings of the wharf.

They were going to help me, Rashel thought. She felt oddly warmed by it.

“Okay,” she said rapidly. “Anne-lise and Keiko, with me. Everybody else, stay. Daphne, keep watch.”

In a matter of minutes she and the boating girls had checked the boats and found two with features they thought they could handle… and with fuel. Anne-lise had removed a couple of crucial engine pieces out of the others.

“Took out the impellers and the solenoids,” she told Rashel mysteriously, holding out a grimy hand.

“Good. Let's set them adrift. Everybody else, get yourself on a boat. Find a place to sit fast and sit
down.
” Rashel moved
to the back of the group where Fayth had her arms around a couple of the girls who looked scared of setting out on the dark ocean. “Come on, people.” She meant to herd them in front of her like chickens.

That was when it happened.

Rashel had an instant's warning—the faint crunch of sand on rock behind her. And then something hit her with incredible force in the middle of the back. It knocked her down and sent her knife flying.

Worse, it sent her mind reeling in shock.
She hadn't been prepared.
That instant's warning hadn't been enough—because she had already lost
zanshin.

She no longer had the gift of continuing mind. She had lost her single purpose. In the old days she'd been fixed on one thing—to kill the Night People. There had been no hesitation, no confusion.

But now… she'd already faltered twice tonight, knocking the werewolves unconscious instead of killing them. She was confused, uncertain. And, as a result, unprepared.

And now I'm dead, she thought. Her numbed mind was desperately trying to recover and come up with a strategy.

But there was a wild snarling in her ear and a trail of hot pain down her back. Animal claws. There was a wolf on top of her.

Rudi had gotten loose.

Rashel gathered herself and bucked to throw the wolf off.
He slipped and she tried to roll out from under him, arms up to keep her throat protected.

The werewolf was too heavy—and too angry. He scrambled over her rolling body like a lumberjack on a log. His snarling muzzle kept darting for her throat in quick lunges. Rashel could see his bushy coat standing on end.

She felt fire across her ribs—his claws had torn through her shirt. She ignored it. Her one thought was to keep him away from her throat. Keeping an elbow up, she reached for the knife with her other hand.

No good. She hadn't rolled far enough. Her fingertips just missed the hilt.

And Rudi the wolf was right in her face. All she could see were sharp wet teeth, black gums, and blazing yellow eyes. Her face was misted with hot canine breath.

Every snap of those jaws made a hollow
glunk.
Rashel only had one option left—to block each lunge as it came. But she couldn't keep that up forever. She was already tiring.

It's over, she thought. The girls who might have helped her—Daphne and Nyala and Anne-lise—were at the far end of the wharf or on the boats. The other girls were undoubtedly too scared even to try. Rashel was alone, and she was going to die very soon.

My own stupid fault, she thought dimly. Her arms were shaking and bloodied. She was getting weaker fast. And the wolf knew.

Even as she thought it, she missed a block.

Her arm slipped sideways. Her throat was exposed. In slow motion she saw the jaws of the wolf opening wide, driving toward her. She saw the triumph in those yellow eyes. She knew, with a curious sense of resignation, that the next thing she would feel was teeth ripping through her flesh. The oldest way to die in the world.

I'm sorry, Daphne, she thought. I'm sorry, Nyala. Please go and be safe.

And then everything seemed to freeze.

The wolf stopped in midlunge, head jerking backward. Its eyes were wide and fixed. Its jaws were open but not moving. It looked as if it might howl.

But it didn't. It collapsed in a hot quivering heap on top of Rashel, legs stiff. Rashel scrambled out from under it automatically.

And saw her knife sticking out of the base of its skull.

Quinn was standing above it.

“Are you all right?”

He was breathing quickly, but he looked calm. Moonlight shone on his black hair.

The entire world was huge and quivering and oddly bright. Rashel still felt as if she were moving in slow motion.

She stared at Quinn, then looked toward the wharf.

Girls were scattered all over, as if frozen in the middle of running in different directions. Some were on the decks of the
two remaining boats. Some were heading toward her. Daphne and Nyala were only fifteen feet away, but they were both staring at Quinn and seemed riveted in place. Nyala's expression was one of horror, hate—and recognition.

Waves hissed softly against the dock.

Think. Now
think,
girl, Rashel told herself. She was in a state of the strangest and most expanded consciousness she'd ever felt. Her hands were icy cold and she seemed to be floating—but her mind was clear.

Everything depended on how she handled the next few minutes.

“Why did you do that?” she asked Quinn softly. At the same time she shot Daphne the fastest and the most intense look of her life. It meant
Go now.
She willed Daphne to understand.

“You just lost a guard,” she went on, getting up slowly.

Keep his eyes on you. Keep moving. Make him talk.

“Not a very good one,” Quinn said, looking with fastidious disgust at the heap of fur.

Go, Daphne,
run,
Rashel thought. She knew the girls still had a chance. There were no other vampires coming down the path. That meant that Rudi had either been too angry to give a general alarm or too scared. That was one good thing about werewolves—they acted on impulse.

Quinn was the danger now.

“Why not a good one?” she asked. “Because he damaged the merchandise?” She lifted her torn shirt away from her ribs.

Quinn threw back his head and laughed. Something jerked in Rashel's chest, but she used the moment to change her position. She was right by the wolf now, with her left hand at the exact level of the knife.

“That's right,” Quinn said. A wild and bitter smile still played around his lips. “He was presumptuous. You almost surrendered to the wrong darkness there, Shelly. By the way, where'd you get a silver knife?”

He doesn't know who I am, Rashel thought. She felt both relief and a strange underlying grief. He still thought she was some girl from the club—maybe a vampire hunter, but not
the
vampire hunter. The one he'd admitted was good.

So he's unprepared. He's off his guard.

If I can kill him with one stroke, before he calls to the other vampires, the girls may get away.

She glanced at the wharf again, deliberately, hoping to draw his gaze. But he didn't look behind him, and Daphne and the other stupid girls weren't leaving.

Refusing to go without her. Idiots!

Now or never, Rashel thought.

“Well, anyway,” she said, “I think you saved my life. Thank you.”

Keeping her eyes down, she held out her hand, her right hand. Quinn looked surprised, then reached out automatically.

With one smooth motion, like a snake uncoiling, Rashel attacked.

Her right hand drove past his hand and clamped on his wrist. Her left hand plunged down to grab the knife. Her fingers closed on the hilt and pulled—and the sheath with its attached silver blade stayed in the werewolf's neck.

Just as she'd planned. The knife itself came free, the real knife, the one made of wood.