Kiss Me When the Sun Goes Down (41 page)

“No!” I screamed, as Carter tumbled over the railing to the ground, an arrow sticking out of his chest.  He landed heavily, cracking the marble tiles as he struck the ground.  I started to go to him, not sure if I should be alarmed by the lack of blood around his broken body or not, but Carys caught my wrist in an iron grip.

“You’d best leave him be.” 

“I’m not leaving him with an arrow in his heart.”  I tried to wrench my hand free, but she held on tight. 

“He’ll need blood to heal him, but Bishop might need it more before the night is through.”  She had a point, but how was I supposed to ignore Carter’s suffering?  Carys must’ve read my thoughts as she added, “He feels no pain with that arrow piercing his heart, I assure you.”

That part was true, I could attest to that.  I’d felt more numb than anything when I’d been shot, and then the blackness of torpor.  Sure, it’d hurt like a motherfrakker when Bishop pulled the arrow out, but for the moment Carter was fine, as much as I hated to see him lying there so lifeless and still.  Well, he’d only be fine if we lived to make sure he healed. 

I turned my attention back to the center of the atrium, where Bishop and Volkov had already begun to circle each other, the knives dancing out faster than my eyes could track.  Neither one of them had drawn blood yet, more testing their opponent first.  That didn’t last long as the fight began in earnest.  I might’ve had training, but Bishop was right, I would’ve been nothing but dust if I’d gone head to head with Volkov.  He moved lightning fast, his movements controlled and precise.  Bishop was no less disciplined, but settled on a defensive, rather than offensive tactic. 

Cuts appeared on their arms, shoulders, one long slice across Bishop’s chest making me wince as Carys’ nails dug into my palm.  I hadn’t even realized we were holding hands.  She was right about the spilled blood, Bishop’s bare chest was slick with it, the scent spicing the air.  Volkov too, had been cut multiple times, but his wounds healed much quicker than Bishop’s did. 

The knife slipped in Bishop’s hand, and Volkov pressed the advantage, sending it skittering across the floor as he delivered a smashing kick to Bishop’s knee.  Bishop went down with a grunt of pain, and Volkov wrapped an arm around his throat, crushing him with his bared bicep.  Bishop’s hands scrabbled to break free, but kept slipping in his own spilled blood. 

None of this was happening as we’d planned.  The fight was supposed to have been a diversion only, until Carter could take the shot and bring him down.  The only reason I’d challenged Volkov in the first place was to get him to accept, thinking he could take me down easily, Bishop’s protest had been just for show.  But with Carter down, we’d lost our ace in the hole.  Maybe that was a sneaky, underhanded way of doing things, but it was the best we’d been able to come up with on such short notice. 

Volkov clearly enjoyed having the upper hand, and didn’t even bother to make use of the knife he still had, forcing Bishop to his knees.  “Yield and I might spare your life,” Volkov smiled, hardly out of breath.  “I might even let you watch as I teach her to control her tongue.”

“Suck... my...”  Bishop went slack, using the blood as a lubricant to slip free as he elbowed Volkov in the stomach and flipped him in the same movement.  Volkov crashed to the ground, but recovered instantly, pulling Bishop down with him.  They rolled, crashing into the marble planter with enough force to send a crack up the side, and then Volkov landed on top, crushing Bishop’s windpipe in his grasp.  Now he remembered the knife, making a slow, deliberate cut across Bishop’s cheek. 

“We have to do something,” I hissed, as Bishop squirmed beneath the knife. 

“We can’t,” Carys whispered back.  “Tradition dictates they must fight to the death.” 

Tradition be damned, I wasn’t about to lose Bishop after everything we’d been through.  “This is stupid,” I declared, stalking over to pick up one of Bishop’s discarded guns.  I might not be the best of shots, but Volkov gave me a great big target while he sat there, playing Tic Tac Toe on Bishop’s skin.

My first shot caught him in the shoulder, and his head came up in utter shock as I advanced, shooting again and again.  The next shot missed, but the third one hit him in the abdomen.  It wasn’t enough to stop a vampire, but it was enough to give Bishop the chance to break free.  In an instant, it was Volkov pinned to the ground with Bishop panting over him, a knee pressed to his neck. 

Volkov’s eyes widened with rage.  “You violated the sanctity of the challenge!”

I shot him again, point blank in the chest where a normal heart would be.  “Your life is still forfeit to me, or don’t you remember?  Jakob gave it to me that night down in the dungeons, and I’m not done with it yet.”

He was getting weaker, losing blood quickly, and Bishop had no trouble holding him down.  I spared a quick look to him to see how badly he was hurt, but despite the network of fresh scars on his body, Bishop had never looked more dangerously capable. 

“I... yield...”  It was barely more than a croak, but the words escaped Volkov’s lips. 

There was a time when I might’ve accepted his defeat, but the woman I’d become had suffered too much to leave a dangerous enemy like him at my back.  “Oh, no you don’t, it’s not that easy.”  I took my eyes off of the bastard long enough to meet Bishop’s gaze.  “Do it.”

Bishop picked up Volkov’s discarded knife and sliced through both of the man’s hamstrings, effectively crippling him, in case he still had the strength to escape.  Only then did Bishop get up off of him to limp to the side.

There are a few ways to kill a vampire, but the most effective are beheading and fire.  Even if I had an axe, I wasn’t sure I could manage to take his head off without a few whacks, and that didn’t sound like much fun to me.  But fire, I could do.  Especially when Rob had already shown me how effective a tool it could be.  I pulled the small plastic container of lighter fluid out of my jacket pocket and squirted some up and down Volkov’s body, starting with his feet.  He was in so much pain from the gunshots and the severed tendons, I don’t think he even noticed, until I splashed some in his face for good measure.  That got his attention. 

“No, wait, you can’t do this,” he moaned weakly, nearly unconscious with blood loss.  “Honor demands...” 

“There’s no honor in what you to did to me and mine,” I said in a cold voice I hardly recognized.  “Vampire law demands an eye for an eye.  That leaves you one life short of paying me back for what you took from me, but I’ll settle for just the one.”  With a flick of the thumb, I sparked up Lee’s lighter and tossed it onto Volkov’s chest.  The fire caught with a satisfying whoosh, the flames licking hungrily over clothing and skin alike.  Volkov had no strength to scream, the fire raging through his bloodless husk fast, until there was nothing but a sooty bloodstain left on my marble floor. 

Bending over, I retrieved Lee’s lighter.  “That was for you,” I whispered, tucking it into my pocket despite the heat against my fingers. 

Bishop’s hand curved around my elbow to draw me away, and I turned to face him, my eyes sweeping over his torso.  He was a bloodstained mess, but the cuts were all healing quickly, with the exception of the deep scar on his cheek that still oozed.

“Are you alright?” I asked, noting the way his shoulders had slumped in exhaustion.

He nodded.  “Carter?”

“In torpor, he’ll need blood.”

“I could use some myself,” he said, his voice little more than a wheeze with the damage to his windpipe.

“Absolutely.  Let’s get back to the house and we can...”  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I dug it out and saw a message that made me smile.  “Actually, it looks like I have just the thing to heal both you and Carter.”

“Bless me, I never thought you had it in  you,” Carys murmured, staring down at the smudge on the floor, impressed.  “Perhaps you are worthy, at that.”  It was probably the nicest thing she’d ever said to me. 

“Thank you,” I smiled.  And then I cracked her right in the jaw, hard enough to knock her out.  It was glorious, and just as satisfying as burning Volkov to a crispy critter.  Bishop stared in shock as I searched for something to tie her up with, settling on the cords from the blinds. 

“What are you doing?”

“Time to go see Jakob.”

“J
akob is here?” Bishop replied, dumbfounded. 

“Yep.  I just got a text that he’s in town.”  Who better to decide what to do with Carys than Jakob?  Of course, she wasn’t likely to stay knocked out for very long, so I had to move fast.  “I’ll take her, you get Carter.  It’s probably better if we move him like that.  He’ll start bleeding like crazy once we pull him out of torpor.”

It took Bishop a few extra seconds to catch up, his mental reflexes not quite up to his usual clarity, but he bent to retrieve Carter’s body, obediently laying him across the back seat as I dumped Carys into the trunk.  I may have conked her on the head again with a tire iron to make sure she stayed docile for the trip, but I didn’t mention it to Bishop. 

I tried not to look at Carter’s ruined body, trusting that Jakob would be in a sharing mood once he heard my story.  Jakob picking now to show sure simpled things up for me.  Otherwise, I might have to live with Bishop giving me sad puppy dog eyes for the rest of eternity, because one thing was certain – I wasn’t going to leave Carys in a position to hurt me like this ever again either.  Maybe I wasn’t about to set fire to her, but something had to be done, and I hoped Jakob could handle it.

Carys was awake and spitting mad when I opened the trunk.  Luckily, the cords I’d tied her with stayed put (she probably would’ve lost all circulation in her hands and feet if she’d been alive). 

I bent over her, my words for her ears only.  “Shut up and keep still, I’m bringing you to Jakob for judgment.  Or would you rather I get out my lighter again?”  Her eyes went wide with fear, but she stayed silent, letting me pull her out of the trunk without putting up a fight. 

If anyone thought it strange that we carried a bloodied unconscious guy and a girl trussed up like a Christmas goose across the street and up into the building, they kept their mouths shut about it.  The pair of guards at the front desk didn’t so much as breathe a word of objection as we sailed through the lower floor to the elevator, riding to the penthouse where Jakob’s apartments were. 

It was Nelleke who answered the door, dressed in a long black dress of rough, homespun cloth.  “He is expecting you,” she said, stepping away from the door with a solemn nod.

The posh penthouse apartment looked pretty much the same since I’d last stayed there, and Jakob sprawled in his favorite chair by an expansive view of the city.  His face crinkled with happiness to see me, until I dropped Carys to the ground like a sack of potatoes where she landed with a squeak.  “I assume you have a good explanation for this?” he asked mildly. 

“I do.  I found out who’s been attacking my family, and I brought her to you for judgment,” I said with my best impression of a regency bob, deciding that formality might stroke his ego in my favor.  Surprise stole across his features as he decided if I was kidding or not.  It helped that Bishop was still covered in blood, despite the fact that he’d pulled on his pants and t-shirt. 

“This sounds like an interesting story to hear,” he replied, still not sounding all that alarmed.  “The restraints are not necessary, release her.”

As much as I hated to do it, I nodded to Bishop, who cut her free.  Carys instantly crawled to Jakob’s knee, her cheeks wet as she drummed up tears.  “You see how they treat me like a common criminal?  Look, look at my wrists and ankles, how deeply the cords bit into my delicate flesh.  You’re not going to let them treat me this way, are you,
minn hjärta
?”

“I see this, but I’m very interested to hear why,” Jakob replied, and her face twisted into a scowl.

“Because she hates me, she’s always hated me.”

I let out an inelegant snort.  “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black.  You’re the one who’s been trying to ruin my life ever since New Year’s.  Who sabotaged my party by poisoning the blood?”

“I did,” she admitted.  “But it wasn’t poisoned, merely tainted.” 

“And who let Volkov out of the dungeon in Vetis?”

“I did, but I never intended for him to...”

“You set Volkov free after I imprisoned him there?”  Now Jakob’s voice took on a measure of concern.  “Why would you do this?”

Carys’ mouth opened and closed without a reply as she considered her words carefully.  “I was jealous, I admit it,” she confessed.  “I sought to make Anja suffer loss as I have suffered.  But I never intended for him to kill anyone.”

“As she suffered?” I scoffed.  “Because of her, Lee and Gunnar are dead.  Because of her, my parents were burned out of their home and I’ve had to hide them.  Because of her, my only sister chose to become a vampire rather than die from the attack
she
set in motion.  I don’t care what her intentions were, she needs to pay for the suffering she’s caused.  And if you won’t do it, I will,” I added, losing my polite formality as I got worked up again. 

Jakob didn’t seem to be offended by my threat.  “And Volkov?  Do you seek his punishment as well?”

“I already took care of it.”

There was respect in Jakob’s nod to me before he turned back to Carys.  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Carys squirmed under his direct gaze, picking at the seam on the side of his leg, unable to look him in the eye.  “I am sorry that she lost her underlings, but it truly wasn’t my fault.  I tried to warn them.”  She looked to Bishop for support.  “Tell him, Ulrik, tell him how I led you to Volkov.”

If she’d been hoping for a kind word from Bishop, she was out of luck.  “Only when you realized you couldn’t control Volkov any more,” he replied, his arms crossed over his chest.  “And only after Volkov had already killed.”

“Enough.”  Jakob drew himself up to his full height, staring coldly down at Carys, who cringed in the chair beside him.  “You have acted out of spite and jealousy, and even worse, now suffer from a distinct lack of responsibility for your actions.  You have brought shame to your line and to me.  Therefore, my punishment is thus – I shun thee, Carys.  My heart is cold to thee, and thou art no longer my daughter for one hundred years.  You are stripped of your titles and lands, and all that see thee will know of thy disgrace.”