Moonlight Calls (Demon's Call Series Book 1) (38 page)

Christian came
to my side and pulled me to my feet.  When it became apparent that I couldn’t
stand on my own he swept me up into his arms and slipped onto the seat I had
just vacated.  I couldn’t decide between crying and shaking, so I settled for a
sort of numb detachment instead.

Dominic cradled
the little girl in his lap like a piece of glass as Ailis drove to the police
station.  Ailis and Dominic left me in the car under Christian’s watchful eye
while they took August to the police.  They were posing as a couple that had
stumbled across the little girl wandering the streets and come to her rescue. 
I knew that there would be a lot of holes in their story, but they were
vampires.  They could adjust everyone’s memories to fit the story.

The human
community would never know about the vampire, or the fate of the rest of the
children.  Hot tears leaked from under my clenched eyelids as I wondered again
just what I was becoming.  There would be no closure for the families of the
missing children.  It would be as if they had just disappeared.  I wondered how
many years it would take before their hope finally died.  I tried not to think
of the feel of the tiny girl in my arms, so alive.  Would the tiny holes in
their hearts ever heal?

Christian had
inspected the church before we drove off, searching for the other kids.  He had
returned a few minutes later, his face expressionless.  No one said anything,
and I tried to ignore the flames that had suddenly engulfed the church as we
pulled away.  I really didn’t want to know the answers tonight- maybe not ever.

When Dominic and
Ailis were done at the police station, Ailis drove us home.  I followed them
all silently into the house.  Christian left me swaying in the middle of the
room while he went to turn on the shower.  I staggered into the bathroom at his
direction.  I was numb down to my bones, and I was so tired that my hands shook
when I imagined peeling off the blood caked clothes I was wearing.  I felt so
cold, and the shower was steaming with warmth.  Glancing at the crusted blood
on my hands, I decided I could muster the strength for a shower, as long as I
wasn’t required to do anything else… for a month or so.  Or maybe not ever.

My hands shook
so badly that I couldn’t undo the buttons of my shirt and pants.  Christian
swept my hands aside and undressed me, then ushered me into the shower.  Half a
century passed- or at least it seemed that way- as I scrubbed blearily at my
skin and scalded myself in the hot water.  I dried off and stumbled to my room,
collapsing on the bed still wearing nothing but a towel.  I hadn’t bothered to
make the bed this morning, and I fell face down into a wad of blankets.  They
were lumpy under me, but I couldn’t manage to move another inch.

I woke some time
later.  I was somehow wearing shorts and a camisole and I was tucked under the
covers.  Ailis came in quietly, glancing behind her before closing the door.  I
was too tired to be anything but blunt.  “What happened in the church?”  My
voice was shaky and my head hurt, but I wanted some answers.

Ailis didn’t
bother to pretend that she didn’t know what I was talking about.  I thought
maybe that was why she snuck in here in the first place.  She was being
stealthy, even for a vampire.

“They were going
to bind you,” she whispered.  I raised an eyebrow and she continued.  “Humans
who are magic handlers- or have special powers like you- strange things happen
around them.”

She took a deep
breath.  “I saw it in one of Dominic’s old books once, a long time ago.  If you
were bitten by a powerful were and a powerful vampire it’s possible that you
would all be bound into a Trifecta.”

I creased my
brows in thought, trying to understand.  Ailis glanced at the door behind her. 
“You would be bound to both of them.  Never knowing if what you did was their
will or yours, never knowing if your thoughts were your own.”  She shook her
head.  “It would not be an equal relationship.  Whoever has the most power, in
this case probably Christian, would have the most influence.  They could draw
power through you.”

I didn’t know
what to say.  “How could they?”  I asked quietly.  “How could they do that to
me without telling me what would happen?”  I felt betrayed.  I put so much
trust in my new circle of friends.  I needed to start trying to remember that
they weren’t human.

Ailis rose and
set a cup of hot tea by my bed before gliding out of the room.  I flopped back
onto the bed, alone with my thoughts.  Ailis thought that if they had bound me,
I would be controlled by Christian.  The scary part was- what if she was
wrong.  What if he wasn’t the most powerful one in the relationship?  What if
they had bound me and Dominic ended up running things, by association putting
Argenou in charge of not only me, but Christian as well?  And what about the
whole vampire/werewolf animosity… thing?  I thought they hated each other.  We
would talk, Christian, Dominic, and I- but not now.  I could only deal with one
thing at a time.  And I had bigger problems.

 I couldn’t
sleep anymore, so I took my cup of tea and staggered out to the kitchen where I
could hear soft conversation drifting out.  The babbling sound was oddly
comforting, and I was drawn to it.  I tried not to notice how all conversation
stopped when I entered the room.  I crossed to the sink and began washing my
hands.

Christian
cleared his throat and I realized I was washing my hands for no reason.  I had
cleaned up in the shower, but once again, I felt tainted.  I turned off the
taps with more force than was strictly necessary and dried my hands on the dish
towel.  I braced my hands on the counter top, still facing away from my
admiring public.

Ailis’s voice
rose hesitantly.  “Are you okay, Mya?”

“No,” I said in
a dead voice.  “I am not okay.”  I raised a fist and slammed it down on the
counter as hard as I could, bruising my hand.  “I am not fucking
okay!”
 I
interspersed this statement with repeated blows to the countertop.  My mind
rebelled.  I didn’t want this.  I hadn’t asked to be drawn into their world.  I
turned to face them defiantly.

 “I don’t even
know what happened tonight.  At least last time I killed someone I remember
being there.  This time I don’t remember.”  I paused to glare around the room. 
“I fucking
blacked out
!”

I looked down at
my hands suddenly, searching for some clue as to what had happened.  They
remained white and unblemished and I clenched them into fists.  They should be
red, stained with the blood that I could feel coating them.  The blood of the
vampire I had killed, the blood of the children who had died, and the blood of
all the countless other people vampires secretly bled dry every day while
humanity went on in ignorance.

With a
tremendous effort, I got a grip on myself.  I dumped the tea down the drain and
grabbed a beer out of the fridge before slumping into a chair beside Dominic. 
“I’m fine,” I said with a sigh.  “It’s just…I think I might have broken
something…inside.”  I waved a hand at my midsection, about the level of my
heart.  I looked up to find them all regarding me with curiosity and puzzlement.

“I don’t
remember killing that vampire.  I remember fighting with him and then I blacked
out.  When came to again I was kneeing in front of his... pieces.”  Christian
reached across the table and placed a large, warm hand on mine in comfort, but
I shook my head and moved my hand away.

“That’s not all
though.”  I sighed heavily.  “I think that little girl was dying.  The vampire
was draining her when I came in.  After I…”  I paused and swallowed heavily. 
No need to bring up the scene afterward.  “After I got rid of him, I went to
her in the car and she was so pale and cold.  She was dying.”

Dominic shook
his head.  “Mya, the girl is fine.  She was perfectly healthy when we left her,
she was just in shock.”

I rubbed my
hands over my face before trying to explain.  It sounded crazy, even to me. 
“But she wasn’t like that before you got there.  She was so pale.  Her lips
were blue.  I held her and this… this blue light flowed over her body.  Her
color came back and her eyes opened and she was... back.”

I shuddered
lightly in memory.  “But I felt drained.  I swear something inside of me ...
snapped.”  It had felt like a rubber band that was stretched too far and
finally broke under the strain.  “After that I felt all shocky and numb. 
Before that I was fine.”  Well, mostly.  Except for nearly letting them
frigging
bind
me.  But let’s not bring that up just now.

Ailis and
Dominic exchanged a shocked glance and Christian looked at me intently.  “Mya,
you think you healed that little girl?” he asked quietly.  

I shrugged and
nodded.  “I don’t know how, but I think so.”

Dominic scooted
his chair around to face me but Ailis spoke first.  “We thought that you were
bitten.”  She said.  “You were showing signs of extreme blood loss.  I thought
I knew why,” she shot a dark look at Dominic, “but I couldn’t find a bite.”

Christian
nodded.  “When you got in the shower, I didn’t see any bites or wounds.”  It
was kind of weird that he had been secretly examining me, but I was really too
tired to care.

Ailis looked
guilty.  “I got you dressed and into bed, and I couldn’t find any sign of a
bite anywhere.  And we can usually sense when another vampire has fed from a
human.”

Good to know, I
thought, eyeing Dominic.  I brushed aside that thought and addressed the matter
at hand.  “What are you saying?”

Then it sank
in.  I had healed the girl, but I took on her symptoms.  It probably hadn’t
been life threatening to me because I was an adult, and could lose more blood. 
The implications were staggering.

Dominic leaned
back and smiled like the Cheshire cat.  “Your powers are getting stronger.”  He
looked...proud.

“Well that’s
just fantastic,” I said nastily.  “But I am never using them again.”  I could
have killed myself tonight by trying to heal someone.  Not to mention the little
fact that I had blacked out and killed someone else.  What if Ailis, or
Christian, or Dominic had walked in a moment sooner?  Would they be sitting
here right now?  I didn’t think so.

Life slowly fell
into routine again over the next few weeks.  I continued to work at the
hospital, even though both the vampires and the wolves had offered to care for
me.  Care for me?  I wasn’t fooled.  They wanted to buy me and keep me close
and dependent.  I would be locked away in a padded prison decorated with gothic
furniture and dragged out like a prize mule whenever there was a “use” for me.

I stifled a
feeling of guilt when I found an envelope addressed to me sitting on the table
the day after our little vampire hunt.  I opened it to find a small card from
Argenou thanking me for my
services,
and a check for five thousand
dollars.  I quieted the voice in my head that asked me who I was becoming as I
made my way to the bank.  I wondered if this was the going rate for hitmen. 
Five thousand dollars didn’t seem like much for obliterating someone.  But
then, I was
just
a human.  I deposited most of the check into a new
account- my savings for tuition.  I had new motivation to get my nursing
degree.  Who knew when I might need to put my medical knowledge to use.

The rest of the
money was used to buy a wicked cocktail dress of black lace with a shimmering
red underlay.  As I was about to leave the store I turned around and added a
pair of red stiletto heels.  I had never spent so much money on clothes in my
life, but I had a reputation to live up to.  I had to look deadly, even if I
didn’t believe it.  Impressions were everything when you lived among predators.

I returned to
the house and stashed my new clothes in my closet before Ailis could see them. 
We were going to be attending a gathering at the coven house next weekend and I
wanted to surprise her.  I knew she would try to loan me a dress, thinking I
couldn’t possibly have something stunning of my own.  I couldn’t wait to see
the look on her face.

I wasn’t exactly
excited to mingle with the vamps, but I was being diplomatic.  I had resigned
myself to the fact that I would have to play the game if I wanted to survive. 
And I did want to survive.  I didn’t know what powers lay hidden in me, waiting
to come out, but I wanted to use them to protect my kind- humans.  I knew now
that the only way to do that was to be involved in the secret world that
surrounded them.  If there was a matter involving humans, perhaps I could
intervene and help deal with it in a manner that would save lives.

*****

I stepped from
the car, carefully placing my red heels on the damp cobblestones that paved the
drive.  The massive Victorian was lit up like a Christmas tree in the night,
light spilling from the high arches of the beautiful leaded glass windows. 
Laughter and conversation tumbled into the night from all directions as groups
of people lingered in the fragrant shadows cast by the giant flowering shrubs
that lined the drive.

I smoothed my
hands over my dress as I stood.  It fit like a glove, hugging my curves in all
the right places.  Shimmering deep red satin glinted from beneath the black
lace.  The top of the dress was cut like a corset, and my breasts felt as
though they were about to spill out.  I thought the outfit was over the top
when I bought it, but now I got a glimpse of the guests around me and was glad
I had chosen it.