Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (52 page)

“I won’t do it.” Jude folded his arms across his chest. “Not until I talk to Mustafa.”

Vivi saw a stiffness in Jude’s shoulders, one that suggested he was a fighter. He couldn’t walk, but she bet he was tough. She bet his mouth had gotten him into trouble with Mustafa and his rat-bastard army.

Fadime crouched so he could look in the doctor’s face. “If you do not cooperate, I have been instructed to draw the girl’s blood myself, and I will not use a needle.”

Jude made a fist. “Now, see here—”

“It’s okay,” Vivi said.

“See?” Fadime said. “The girl, she is smarter than you.”

“Fadime?” Vivi said. “Could you leave me and Jude alone while he gets the sample?”

He snorted and flashed a cocky look. “No.”

“What about afterward?” Vivi said. “Can I have a minute with him?”

Fadime tilted his head, as if giving the matter serious thought. “No.”

Vivi forced herself to breathe in and out, gathering her thoughts the way Sabine had taught her.
Fadime, give us time alone. Go in the hall and wait.

His eyelids flickered, and then he reached for the doorknob. “I will be in the hall.”

She waited until the door had clicked behind him, then turned to Jude. He pointed at her cheek. “Who hit your cheek?” he asked quietly.

“Forget it. I’m fine.” If he was worried about her bruised face, he’d really get upset about the Tasering. Better not mention it.

She forced herself to breathe, and then she gave him a little nudge.
Jude, tell the truth.

“Are you my dad?” she asked.

“Yes.” His eyes filled. “You’re my Meep.”

She leaned forward, studying his arm. “You have a green snake tattoo like Mustafa.”

“It wasn’t always like this. Mustafa added the snake after he brought me here.”

Vivi felt confused. “Added it? To what?”

“When I became a vampire, I received an infinity
tattoo. It’s the logo for the Salucard Foundation. Raphael has one. So does your uncle Nigel.” He frowned at his arm. “Mustafa was a member of Salucard. He broke away and added the snake.”

“A serpent for a serpent,” Vivi said. “If you spell Salucard backward, you get Draculas.”

Jude smiled, and then his eyes fogged. “How’s your mother? Is she here, too?”

“No. She’s with Raphael.”

“With him? I’m not following you. How did Mustafa’s soldiers kidnap you if Raphael was around?”

“He wasn’t. Neither was Mom. They were in Paris. I was in a little town in southern France. Near Grasse.”

Jude’s eyelids flickered. “Who was taking care of you?”

“A French doctor. A lady. Not a vampire. But she’s like mom—half immortal. They’re related somehow.”

Jude rubbed his temple. “Is your mother still in Paris?”

“Who knows? She’s like a great white shark. Always moving. But now I understand why. Try not to freak out. If Mustafa’s army shows up, Raphael will beat the crap out of them.”

Jude gave her a long, searching look. “How is he?”

“Fine.” She stretched her arm on the counter. “Fadime won’t stay gone forever. We can talk while you get my blood.”

Jude tied the rubber strap around her arm. “Make a fist. There you go. I’m sorry. I hate doing this.”

“I don’t mind.” She stared down at her arm. Blue veins ran along the inner aspect of her elbow. Jude fit a tube into the vacuum syringe, then swabbed her arm with an alcohol pad.

“You’ll feel a stick,” he said.

Vivi saw her blood splash into the tube. She looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’ll take a moment or two. I’ve got to fill the lot of these tubes.”

“Why do you need my blood? For a paternity test?”

“I know you’re my daughter,” he said. “Mustafa wants your blood for another purpose.”

She turned back to him, eyebrows lowered. “What kind?”

“I can’t explain right now.” He cut his eyes to the door, then back to Vivi’s arm. “Fadime might hear.”

“Do they have security cameras in here?”

“They’re broken.” He leaned over her arm and replaced a blood-filled vial with an empty one.

“You talk like Uncle Nigel,” she said. “The British way.”

Jude glanced up. “You have an ear for dialects?”

“I guess. Mom and I travel a lot.”

“That’s how you got your nickname. Because you spent your babyhood in airports.”

“Yeah, Mom told me.” She felt another wave of shyness and looked at his his left hand. No ring. No indention in the flesh. No mark.

“You lost your wedding band,” she said. “Mom still has hers. She keeps it in a box.”

“Mine was stolen,” Jude said.

“By whom?”

“Someone from Al-Dîn.” He removed the rubber tourniquet, took the needle out of her arm, and put an alcohol swab on the puncture.

“Glad that’s over.” Vivi folded her arm.

“One more thing.” Jude held up a long Q-Tip. “I need to swab your cheek. Open wide.”

She opened her mouth. “Ah,” she said.

The swab was in and out in a flash. He snipped off the end, dropped the white part into a tube, and added a liquid. “What’re you doing?”

“I added lysis solution.
Lysis
is the Greek word for ‘separate.’”

“No, I meant, what are you doing with that swab?”

“Oh, I’ll extract your DNA.” Jude nodded at the counter. “Everything is set up. A warm water bath, microcentrifuge, micropipettes, more solutions.”

“Why would anyone care about my DNA?”

“Mustafa thinks—”

The door opened, and Fadime stepped into the room, looking befuddled. “Are you finished?” he asked.

Vivi was just about to Induce him again when Jude spoke up.

“No, not entirely,” he told Fadime. “I’ll need to run a few more tests. Bring Miss Barrett to my lab in the morning.”

VILLA PRIMAVERINA, ISLA CARBONARA

VENICE, ITALY

When I awoke, Raphael was gone, and for a moment I thought we were still in Paris. Then I remembered. Vivi was gone. I rolled into a ball and pushed my face into the pillow. I felt hollow and scraped out. A part of me had always feared this might happen. I’d tried to cast a protective net around her, the same kind my parents had drawn around me. But evil possessed a stronger force than goodness. I hadn’t sent Vivi to a safe place. I’d sent her into the heart of danger.

How do you keep breathing when your child has been taken away? Was she hungry? Scared?

Arrapato wiggled out of the blanket and licked one side of my face, his tongue working meticulously. I caught his face.

“Where’s Raphael?” I whispered.

Arrapato snorted. I looked at the gold cherub clock. Nine fifteen
P.M.
The sun had set.

I put on a black long-sleeved dress that matched my mood, then I opened the bedroom door. Arrapato stayed on the bed, licking his paws. I shut the door and stepped into the hall. Raphael’s study was on the lower terrace level, under the kitchen and the main entry.

I walked down the stairs and passed through a wide hallway. At the far end, a massive walnut door stood ajar, showing another hallway. A light spilled out of Raphael’s study and I heard voices—Beppe’s Germanic accent, La Rochenoire’s French lilt, and the softer Italian tones of Raphael and his detectives.

I didn’t want to disturb them—no, that wasn’t true. I couldn’t be around anyone right now. I’d lost my place in this world. I turned toward the French doors. Rain forked down the glass panes. Beyond the doors, floodlights brightened the grounds. Mist crouched in the garden, lurking around a statue of Athena, stalking a menagerie of topiary animals that had been shaped and sculpted into mythological beasts. A dark shadow edged between a unicorn and the Kraken. I blinked. My saliva tasted sour and metallic. And I smelled ketones—not pomegranates or cherries, but something fetid and earthy.

My pulse bumped under my jaw. Had I suffered a complete breakdown? Would vampires dare come to Villa Primaverina? Could they bypass Raphael’s small, well-armed navy?

The back of my neck tightened as I inched closer to the window. The wind shook one of the Kraken’s tentacles.
Further out, the island of Murano was hidden by smoke and clouds. Someone was out there, waiting and watching.

Stop being paranoid, Caro. No one is there.

I glanced over my shoulder, toward the hallway. What was keeping Raphael? I heard the faint sound of Arrapato’s barks from the bedroom, and I turned back to the window. A woman stood on the other side of the glass.

I jolted.

Her hair was plastered to her head. Blue lights leaped in her eyes. She wore a black body suit and combat boots.

Tatiana. She had taken Vivi and now she had come for me.

“Open the door, Caro,” she shouted.

Everything moved too fast. I stepped backward, screaming for Raphael. She lifted her boot and kicked in the door. The glass shattered and clinked to the floor. Wind blew in through the broken glass, stirring Tatiana’s hair. Behind her, in the garden, I heard gunshots, and a man shouted.

She lunged through the space where the glass had been, into the room. I spun around and ran toward the doors. She beat me to them, wrenched the handles, and grabbed me. I twisted at the waist and pulled her hair.

“Cunt,” she said, and shoved me to the floor. She pounced on top of me and sank her teeth into my neck. I felt a burst of pain below my ear, heard sucking noises. She was too strong, and I couldn’t fight her. A memory broke through my panic. My blood might be a weapon. She could be sensitive to my hybrid antigens. I let my arms drop to the floor, hoping she’d think that I was succumbing to her neurotoxin. She would expect me to become paralyzed.

I lay still, listening to her swallow. Jude had told me long ago that vampires weren’t automatically allergic to hybrids. First a vampire had to drink a hybrid’s blood. During that initial encounter, the vampire would not have a physiological reaction. Because he’d never been exposed to the antigen, he would have no antibodies. But the first moment he drank a hybrid’s blood, the vampire’s super immune system would start building antibodies to the antigen. The next time the vampire bit a hybrid, the result could be fatal. This wasn’t a theory. It was a scientific fact, like a human’s reaction to bee stings, nuts, shellfish, or penicillin.

Tatiana had most likely consumed Keats’s hybrid blood. If so, her own immune system would have made antibodies. The allergic reaction occurred swiftly in immortals.

I waited. She sucked my neck harder, her throat clicking, the coppery smell of blood rising up. Her body pushed hard against mine, as if she were enjoying herself. What if she hadn’t drunk Keats’s blood? What if she’d never been exposed to a hybrid’s antigens? A fissure opened up inside me, and all of my fears rushed out. I would die.

Then she started breathing faster and faster.

I’ve got you now
, I thought. The anaphylactic reaction was beginning. Her blood pressure would start to drop; she’d wheeze and break out in itchy hives. The more blood she swallowed, the greater the allergic response.

Drink, drink, drink.

Tatiana’s body went rigid, and her boots scraped through the broken glass. She braced her hands on the
floor and rose up, my blood running down her chin. Her pupils were dilated. Her lips had turned faintly blue; she pursed them and released a harsh breath. It sounded like a stick being dragged through gravel. The bitch was going down.

I pushed her away from me, and she rolled onto her back, banging her fist against her chest. I saw a diamond horseshoe ring on her pinkie. She’d killed Gillian?

From the hallway, I heard footsteps. The logical part of my brain told me to open the door, to let the men handle it. But a blood lust welled up inside me. She’d murdered Gillian. She’d killed my husband; taken his wedding ring and put it on Keats’s finger. She’d stolen my daughter. She was responsible for Mrs. MacLeod’s death.

Tatiana rolled over and scrambled to her hands and knees. Her chest heaved. A thread of blood and saliva fell from her mouth, onto the floor. Red welts were breaking out on her face and arms.

Raphael was knocking on the door.
“Caro?”

“Tatiana broke in,” I called. “I’m okay.”

As I felt my blood stream down my neck, I wanted her to die. I kicked her ribs. A burst of air rushed through her teeth. Another round of gunfire exploded on the lawn.

I heard the distant sound of excited Italian voices. She lifted her head, blinking toward the shattered French door. “Gambi?” she called in a slurry voice. “Siphi? Moyo?”

My heart was pumping so hard. How had Tatiana and her killers gotten to the island? Raphael’s men patrolled the lagoon, and armed guards were posted on the boat
dock. I dug my fingers into her scalp and yanked her head back. With my other hand, I picked up a long shard of glass and pressed the pointy end against her carotid.

“Where’s my daughter?” I said. I felt the glass slicing into my fingers, but I didn’t let go.

She opened her mouth wide and dragged in a breath. “Fuck you.”

I pushed the shard in a little deeper, and a dark string ran down her throat. “What have you done with her?”