Dark Legend (38 page)

Gabriel watched the heavy fog moving through the city. It was not a natural fog, but one created to allow the undead to move unseen by their prey. He lifted his face to the shadow of the moon and drank in the beauty of it. He was a hunter of the night. A natural predator. He leaped easily onto the railing and spread his arms wide, embracing the air as he stepped into space.

At once his body shimmered, becoming transparent so that the heavy fog could be seen right through him. He seemed to dissolve into millions of droplets; which streamed through the sky, weaving in and out of the dark clouds and the heavy fog. He flew out over the city, scanning as he went, looking for "dead" spaces that might indicate where the enemy was hiding. The small group of vampires that had banded together in the city were hunting for victims, for live prey to be used and discarded.

Gabriel was determined to rid the city of the undead this night, and he wanted to find Brice. He knew Brice's fate weighed heavily on Francesca's conscience and he was determined that he would put things right. He freely admitted he had little use for the man, but Francesca felt affection for the doctor and the things he had done lately had been committed under the influence of a vampire. Perhaps even Lucian, although Gabriel doubted it. He would never have sent Brice to the house to take Skyler from them and then aid Gabriel in sending him away. There was no point in such a move.

A few nightspots were teaming with life, the perfect hunting grounds for the vampires. They would find prey to their liking, young men and women they could manipulate into all kinds of deviant behavior just for the perverse pleasure of making them squirm before giving them death.

He moved through the city in silence, scanning for the undead even as he searched for a hint of Brice. Twice he moved over the hospital, knowing Brice often spent long hours there, but, instead, he found him in the cemetery, drawn, no doubt, by his connection to the unclean
nosferatu.
Gabriel stayed high in the fog, carefully examining the area for one of the undead. Brice was shuffling over the uneven ground, stumbling like a drunken man, muttering to himself, and constantly batting at his body as if he still felt the crawling of bugs over his skin.

Gabriel had withdrawn that illusion as soon as Brice was off the property, but one of the vampires controlling the doctor must have picked the memory out of his head and used it to punish his failure to obtain Skyler. Gabriel felt the malevolent presence of one of the vampires. Not an ancient, more likely one recently turned, running with a pack to learn as much as he could as fast as he could. They thought they were banding together for protection against the hunters, but more often than not, the ancient vampires used the lesser ones as pawns, to be sacrificed.

Had Lucian joined this group? The question nagged at Gabriel. He shook the thought away. It was much more likely that Lucian would control those around him from a distance so that they would never know what was happening to them. Gabriel had seen him do it often enough. His voice alone was one of the most powerful weapons Gabriel had ever encountered. Lucian had never allowed anyone else to intrude on their battles, he had disposed of other vampires in the areas where Gabriel had chased him. He never left evidence any other hunter would recognize. Lucian was not messy about his kills.

Gabriel streamed to earth, the tiny droplets coming together just out of sight of Brice. For a moment the large frame shimmered and sparkled like crystal before it solidified. Then Gabriel was striding through the cemetery to cut Brice off before he could make his way to the caverns where the vampire waited.

Gabriel could feel the compulsion the undead was using to call his victim to him. Brice was muttering to himself, his clothes disheveled and dirty. There were long scratches on his skin where he had attempted to dislodge the illusory bugs crawling on him. Gabriel tried to feel sorry for the doctor because he knew Francesca would be so horrified. But Brice had opened himself up to the vampire's compulsion through his own jealousy, and Gabriel could not forgive him for aiding the undead in his attempt to ensnare Francesca and Skyler.

Brice kept his head down as he hobbled determinedly forward. He didn't seem to notice Gabriel standing solidly in his way. Gabriel waved his hand to put up a block, one invisible to the eye, but strong enough to interrupt the compulsion in the air. Brice's blood had obviously been tainted by the vampire, so he continued to shuffle his feet although he was unable to move beyond the boundary Gabriel set for him.

The doctor's eyes were dilated, fixed, and staring. He was far gone under the spell. Gabriel entered his mind to counteract the compulsion and give the human some relief. Brice's face went slack and his muscles relaxed so that he stopped attempting to move toward his destination.

Gabriel very gently eased him into a sitting position and Brice complied like a lost child.

From somewhere close, Gabriel heard a shriek of rage. Vampires didn't like interference with their chosen victims. The puppet master was not going to let Brice go so easily. Gabriel smiled and turned his face up to the sky. The clouds were darkening to an angry black above his head, and small veins of lightning leaped from cloud to cloud. He shook his head slightly, and as the electrical charge began to build where he stood, he raised his hand and swept it in a small semicircle.

Anyone watching would hardly have noticed the gesture, but the lightning in the clouds reacted immediately, slamming to earth just beyond the gently rolling hill, out of sight. The clap of thunder was deafening, as was the bang as the bolts scorched earth and shattered gravestones. A scream of hate and vengeance rose with the whirling wind. The trees began to shake under the onslaught, first twigs and then branches shaking loose to hurtle through the sky toward Gabriel.

He blew softly into his palms and stood tall and straight, unconcerned as debris rained down around him. Brice sat at his knees, unknowing, uncaring of the danger. There was no warning as the wind suddenly reversed itself. The sky rained leaves and dirt and branches over the small hill. Gabriel leaped into the air with the largest branch, camouflaged by its bulk.

He was on the vampire before it had time to realize it was in deadly peril. Gabriel blasted out of the sky like a missile straight at the gaunt figure standing on the charred grass. Around him were broken headstones, shattered by the lightning bolts and the branches and wicked wind. The vampire stood frozen, trying to decide his next move even as he attempted to protect himself from the flying objects coming at his body,

Gabriel came in behind the branch, hitting the vampire so hard, the blow drove the creature backward with Gabriel's fist embedded deep in his chest cavity. He gripped the blackened, pulsing heart and extracted the thing, separating the organ from the body. Even as he did so, he leaped away to minimize his contact with the tainted blood.

The vampire's shriek of despair echoed through the cemetery so that the bats rose up into the air in great clouds. The undead simply folded in half and sank in a heap to the bloodstained ground, flopping, dragging its body toward Gabriel, toward the dark, ugly thing he tossed upon a rock just out of the vampire's reaching claw. Almost without conscious thought, Gabriel built the charge of electricity and directed it at the horrible organ straining to return to its body. The thin white-hot lash incinerated the heart and leaped to the body of the undead, reducing it to ashes. At once Gabriel bathed his hands in the heat, removing every trace of tainted blood before checking that the ground was clean of all infection. The vampire couldn't have turned very many years earlier; he'd been unskilled and slow. He couldn't have been the one to put Brice under such a well-hidden compulsion. The darkness in the doctor ran deep, it tainted his blood and was eating up his will and rotting him from the inside out. He wasn't a ghoul, feasting on the flesh of human dead and living for the vampire's blood, but the one controlling him was a powerful being.

Gabriel couldn't see Lucian's hand in Brice's corruption. Lucian would consider it beneath him to do such a thing. He might harm Brice, or kill him outright, but he wouldn't use the man to entrap Skyler and ultimately Francesca. He would not need to stoop to such a thing. Lucian was a true genius. He possessed a powerful brain that constantly thirsted for knowledge. Lucian needed difficulties for his mind to work on. Intellectual challenge was what kept him from going completely mad.

Gabriel shook his head, exasperated with himself. Lucian
had
gone mad; he had chosen to lose his soul many centuries ago. If Gabriel was going to protect his family, he could no longer think of Lucian as being part of him.

Francesca was his heart and soul now. He couldn't take the chance of Lucian harming her. Gabriel made his way back to Brice. He needed to take the man back to the house and put him under a strong safeguard to prevent the vampire from harming him further. Brice was so far gone, Gabriel wasn't certain the doctor could be helped. Obviously the vampire had been working on Brice subtly for a long while.

The doctor was huddled in a ball on the ground, oblivious to his surroundings, deep within Gabriel's spell. Gabriel knew no one but Lucian could break through the safeguard keeping Brice's mind intact. It was a gamble bringing Brice into Francesca's home. They would have to take him to the underground chamber so Skyler would not be frightened by the sight of the doctor. And if he couldn't be healed, it would be up to Gabriel to show him mercy; it was not something he thought Francesca would thank him for.

Gabriel lifted the man as if he were no more than a child. Under the strong hypnotic trance Gabriel had put him in, Brice was completely trusting. He lay passive as Gabriel took to the air with him. The cloud cover was heavy enough to prevent prying eyes from seeing more than a blur moving fast through the night sky.

Francesca was waiting on the balcony for him, an anxious look on her usually serene face. Gabriel hadn't attempted to keep the extent of the damage from her and she knew if she were to save Brice's sanity, they would have to work fast. "Thank you for trying, Gabriel," she whispered softly, her voice a velvet caress. Her eyes moved over him carefully, searching for any injury he might have sustained.

At once he felt that curious melting sensation he was becoming familiar with. She was worried about him, checking to be sure he was fine even when he was bringing her a human friend whose mind had been damaged by the undead. Francesca thought of him first, and her concern meant everything to him. "I have directed Santino and Drusilla away from the kitchen so that we can take him safely down to the chamber. Skyler is asleep in her room. See to it that she stays there." His voice was a little bit gruff, made husky by emotion he couldn't control. She was so beautiful standing there in the night, tall and slender with her long hair in a thick braid and love shining in her eyes.

Gabriel reached out to run his fingertip tenderly down her face. "I think there is a chance that he can be healed, Francesca, but it will be difficult. The poison is already well advanced in his system."

"Can the vampire reach him in our home?" She was worried about young Skyler. The girl had suffered enough at the hands of a human monster; she didn't need to witness what the undead was capable of doing.

"Unless the one using him is Lucian, there is no way he can penetrate the safeguards I have wrought. I do not believe this is Lucian's work. But it must be an ancient to have deceived both of us as he did. He must have taken Brice's blood some time ago. Brice is using drugs to counteract the pain in his head, but he does not understand what is happening to him. He thinks only what the vampire wishes him to think. He is a puppet now with none of his own thoughts. I warn you, Francesca, the damage is substantial. He may never be the same again."

"I will try," Francesca vowed as she followed him down the stairs through the kitchen and below the earth where the first chamber lay.

Gabriel placed Brice on the bed and turned to help his lifemate fill the room with the pungent odor of healing herbs. At once a frown replaced the slack expression on the doctor's face and he moved restlessly. Gabriel took Francesca's hand in his, brought her knuckles to the warmth of his mouth. "You know I must go back out and find this evil one. Without his death, Brice is lost no matter what we do. The vampire knows we have Brice and he is angrier than ever. We cannot keep the man a prisoner down here forever."

Francesca turned her face away from Gabriel in an attempt to hide her expression from him. He was going back out to hunt. They both knew he had to do it, but she didn't have to like the idea. Gabriel's arm encircled her slender shoulders and pulled her into the shelter of his body. "I am not going to allow any vampire to defeat me, my love, when I have so much at stake. I will remove the threat to Brice's sanity. Then we will see what can be done to heal him."

Reluctantly he released her, his hands lingering for a moment in the wealth of her hair, crushing the thick braid in his fist. He knew she was afraid for him, but he was pleased that she refused to voice her fears, rather gave him a tentative smile to send him off.

"Do not attempt to heal this one until I return. His blood is tainted with the vampire's blood. You cannot walk in his mind alone and unaided. Should I not return, you must get another healer to aid you before you make your attempt. Promise me, Francesca. It would be far too dangerous for you to go in without additional strength. Remember always, you carry our life within your body."

She gave him a quick look of reprimand from under the long sweep of her lashes. "It is not necessary to remind me of either fact. I do not care to dwell on the possibility that you might not return. And I have never, for one moment, forgotten I carry our child. She is a miracle to me. I would never risk the baby, not even for Brice. You
will
return to me this night. I will expect you very soon without a mark on your body. Now go and do what you were born for." She leaned into him, resting her body all too briefly against his, savoring the feel of him. Strong. Masculine. Powerful.