Necromancing Nim (37 page)

“Yeah,” said Colin. “Sebastian got the news on your short-wave mental radio.”

“Did you?”

Sebastian nodded. “Yeah. You were scared.” He sounded sober and serious now and flicked a glance in my direction.

“Damn straight I was.” Sebastian took another turn in a branch of the tunnels. It didn’t feel to me like we were going the right direction. “Are we going back to the hotel?”

“No,” said Colin. “We’re meeting up with Roland.”

“I thought I was supposed to be finding Roland?” What the hell had they been doing while I’d been in the library?

“One of her people called after you left.” Sebastian looked at me apologetically. “I tried to call, but you didn’t answer. It’s not good.”

“Of course I didn’t answer. I was running like a freak all over the damn library. Plus, I had no service down there.” I pulled out my phone—sure enough, there were two missed calls and a waiting voice mail. God knew how I had service here. But I was convinced it was a rule of cell phone usage that you always lose service when somebody desperately needs to contact you.

I didn’t ask for clarification of what “not good” meant. I didn’t want clarification. If it was bad, then it was bad, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. All I could really do right now was just stick with Colin and Sebastian and get myself to safety. And whatever happened after that…

It was coming. The final step, the final move against the bad guys. I knew that. I knew what it meant, for me and especially for Sebastian. And I didn’t want to think about it. If the thought drifted too close to the surface of my mind, I could feel the panic lurking, ready to drag me under, and I couldn’t do that right now.

The corridors we were walking through now had darkened, the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling becoming less and less frequent. My vampire companions kept right on going, unhindered by the lack of light.

“Hey. Guys.” I trotted to catch up, disoriented by the growing darkness. “Not a vampire, here.”

“What?” said Colin, obviously not yet in tune with what was going on. Sebastian, on the other hand, slowed down and let me catch up, then took my hand.

“Thanks,” I said. His hand felt good in mine, and I squeezed it, trying not to think about anything but one step after another, moving forward into the deepening darkness.

It wasn’t long before the light disappeared altogether, leaving me no choice but to cling to Sebastian’s hand, keeping pace with him as best I could. My breath quickened, panic clawing at me as the dark closed in. Sebastian’s fingers tightened on mine, reassuring. I wished I’d brought my night-vision goggles. I’d rather make an impossibly lame fashion statement than wander around in the dark, freaking out.

“Not much farther.” Sebastian pitched his voice low, barely above a murmur. I hated that he could see me and I couldn’t see him, hated even more that he knew what I was feeling.

“What the hell possessed you two to come through a pitch-black tunnel?” I spoke quietly too, though I was angry enough to talk considerably more loudly. “You knew I’d have to go back through.” My voice trembled.

“Didn’t even think about it.” He, at least, sounded chagrined.

“We can see just fine,” Colin added, and if I’d been able to see him, I likely would have hit him again.

Instead, I just asked quietly, “How much farther?”

“Not far,” Sebastian reassured.

We kept on going. And the light didn’t return, and I felt more and more unsettled, like something was wrong just beyond where I could see it or hear it or feel it, but I couldn’t tell if it was really a threat, something I felt through the strange new bonds that gave me these new weird incomprehensible feelings, or if it was just me trying to have a panic attack. I tried breathing slowly, steadying myself, feeling my hand clutch Sebastian’s. I could smell him in the dark, the soft, musky smell that had surrounded me in his bed—

Okay, not really a calming thought, though it did distract me from the panic. But something was wrong. Really wrong. And we couldn’t get where we were going soon enough, as far as I was concerned.

“So what happened?” I queried, thinking maybe getting more information would help stave off the impending panic.

“While you were hunting for Roland at the library,” Sebastian began, his voice quiet in the echo-prone tunnels, “she was setting up extra safeguards at the house where she puts up some of her helpers.”

“They had turncoats,” Colin broke in. “Plants. Careful as she is, she had at least two of Pieter’s people living in that house.”

I sighed. “And at least one in the library. God, he’s a bastard.”

“Yes,” Sebastian agreed, with feeling. “He is that. Colin!”

The “whoof” sound came without warning from a foot or two in front of us, just after Sebastian’s exclamation. Sebastian jolted to a stop.

“Colin?” he said.

“Shit,” I muttered, realizing what had just happened, then felt Sebastian lurch sideways next to me, his hand wrenching free from mine. Oh, just perfect. Alone in the pitch black with bad vamps. Just what I’d always wanted. I immediately sat down on the ground and hoped nobody stepped on me.

“Give it to me,” a voice demanded, the sound of it right next to my face, the smell of it wafting over me in thick clouds so noxious they might have been visible if there’d been any light at all. A hand grabbed my upper arm, fingers digging between bone and muscle.

“Stop it!” I protested. “I mean seriously, knock it the fuck off. I’m getting it.” I rummaged in my pockets, hoping it seemed like a believable search for the stone. Why they all thought I had it, I had no idea, but I hoped either Colin or Sebastian had it on their person.

“Get it faster,” the vampire snarled and shook me.

“You are a stupid fucktard,” I informed him and pepper sprayed him in the face.

The darkness was a hindrance, of course, but with that vicious halitosis of his, it was practically impossible not to know where his face was. He made a horrible screeching sound, and I felt him lurch back from me, the grip on my arm jerking me sideways a moment before he let go. I ducked down to the floor right away, afraid I’d get a backlash of the spray since I’d had to use it in such close quarters. But I lucked out this time.

There were more “oofing” sounds that sounded like Colin had rejoined the fray, and I heard the other vampire curse. Then a hand grabbed me again, on the same spot on my upper arm, but this time it lifted me, encouraging me to my feet.

“Let’s go,” said Sebastian. “He might have friends.”

“That would be bad.”

“Yes.”

I clutched Sebastian’s hand, closed my eyes and let him lead me on.

A few minutes later, the light finally returned, faint but a relief. After the pitch-black, even the vague illumination seemed like full sunlight. I breathed a sigh of relief when I could finally see again and started to let go of Sebastian’s hand, but he wouldn’t let me. Which was fine, I decided after a few seconds. I liked holding his hand.

Colin, I noticed, had developed a limp. Probably the result of whatever had caused his grunting in the earlier encounter. He gimped along pretty fast, though, and within the next few minutes, we were heading up a short flight of steps into the basement of another building.

The door out of the tunnels led into a room filled with light. I headed right out into it, almost dragging Sebastian with me before I realized what I was doing in my haste to get the hell out from the stupid tunnels and into someplace where human folks could function.

“Wait,” he said and finally let go of my hand to keep me from frying it in the light. “Security codes.”

Colin was bending to peer at a keypad on the wall just inside the door. After a moment, he poked in four numbers, and the light disappeared.

I blinked—it wasn’t dead dark this time, but my vision went black for a second before my pupils adjusted to the reduced illumination. “It’s not sunlight?”

But Colin only shook his head with not even a hint of impatience or suppressed mocking. “Artificial sunlight. Like those SADD lamps. Fry the shit out of a vampire.”

“Oh. Good to know.” Sebastian and Colin joined me again now that the threat was over. We crossed through the narrow room to the next door, where another keypad allowed them to reactivate the security device. The room flooded once again with the intense light. We passed through that door and presumably into safety.

Sebastian led the way up a short flight of stairs that led into what appeared to be the lower level of another building. Not a university building this time but a private residence. An older one, with a faint smell of must. A student residence building, I thought, and realized we’d walked even farther east through the tunnels, completely out from under the quad. I was pretty sure there were one or two houses specifically for vamps out toward Lincoln Avenue and assumed that was where we were.

Inside, the lights were low, but I could see figures in the semi-darkness, which probably wouldn’t have seemed so dark if it hadn’t been for the flashes of artificial sunlight I’d just been subjected to. The room appeared to be a gathering area, sort of a lobby or TV/study room.

I blinked a few times, and things began to come into focus—a long couch, a chaise or two, a big-screen television, beanbags, tables and a scattering of chairs. The chairs might once have been in order, lined up for optimum television viewing, but now most of them were turned over and a few appeared to have been brutally tortured to the point of having limbs removed. The tables were in little better condition. The carpeting was dirtied with piles and smears of what was left of at least three or four vampires. The bad guys, I hoped. One pile had a chair leg in the middle of it, as if the makeshift wooden stake had been the murder weapon.

Sebastian picked up his pace as we entered, moving quickly toward a chaise at the far side of the room. I could make out faces on the milling figures now, many of whom were heading the same direction Sebastian was. Two people were already bending over the slim person draped across the chaise.

“Roland?” Sebastian stopped to kneel next to the chaise. I peered more closely and was finally able to make her out. She was clearly not at her best, her face and chest covered with blood.

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice quavering. “We got the safeguards activated on the lower levels of the library. They didn’t get anything.”

“Except you.” A careful gentleness had crept into his tone—enough to make me very, very worried about Roland’s condition. “How bad is it?”

She gave a rough laugh. “I’ll be out of commission for a while, but I’ll live, as they say.”

Colin and I came farther into the room. Closer, I could see there was even more blood on Roland that I’d initially thought. One of the others—a human, I was fairly certain—was carefully washing the blood from Roland’s skin, making soft, consoling noises as he did so.

“Are we safe here?” Colin asked gruffly.

Roland maneuvered herself stiffly into a sitting position. “For now.” She pushed a hand through her hair, the movement arrested when her fingers met strands matted with still more blood. “They want what you have, and they want it badly.”

“Pieter’s dying without it,” I said. “I saw him. He’s not in good shape.”

“It could have been a glamour,” one of the others put in. “Something to throw us off the track, to make us think he’s weaker than he is.”

“I can see through glamours.” I said it matter-of-factly, my pronouncement met by a pair of wide-eyed stares. I felt no particular need to elaborate. “He’s dying.”

Sebastian nodded, backing me up. “He would be.” The quiet voice gave no hint to the fact that he was sharing a similar fate.

“It’ll make him either harder to kill or easier,” Roland stated. She seemed to be regaining her strength even as I watched, sitting up straighter now, her mouth set in a hard line. Waving toward the students tending to her, she shooed them away. “How many were there?” This was directed at Sebastian.

“Four in the tunnels. How many at the library, Nim?”

“Three, counting Pieter. One of them dusted herself in the sun.”

Roland nodded. “It could be worse.”

Colin came to his feet. “They’ll come after us in full force once night falls. I think we can count on that.”

Sebastian nodded. “I think you’re right.”

Roland rubbed her forehead, her hand still rust-brown with her drying blood. “You have what you need? We need to be ready.”

Sebastian’s voice was dark, sober and weighty. “We will be.”

The vampire’s sexual drive is closely tied to the drawing and consumption of blood. These urges can only be separated with great difficulty. In addition, the vampire is often known to coerce his human partners into perverse sexual acts.
—
Sexuality and the Vampire
, Prentice Hall, 1970 (out of print).

Chapter Twenty-Five

There was a small cadre of vampire and human students living in the house, which I couldn’t help thinking of as a safe house, though it was more likely something along the lines of a vampire frat. Except with less beer. The basement area, where we’d found Roland, functioned as their study/recreation/television/video game/drinking/probably occasional sexing room, while the upper levels provided living quarters for ten or fifteen inhabitants, judging by the number of bedroom doors. In the middle of the day, of course, most of the vampires were still asleep.