Stone Guardian (31 page)

And then the scene faded. Now the scenes on the globe sped up.

Her. It was Terak watching her, before they had ever met.

She saw the seasons change. How long had he been watching her – two, three months?

And then the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

The building across the street. The protective presence she sometimes wondered about, always attributing to an overactive imagination.

Stupid. Stupid woman. Why the hell didn’t you ever question anything? Why did you never question Terak?

Because everything had always been going so fast. There never seemed to be time to sit still and think.

Terak hadn’t shown up as some good Samaritan who happened to pass by. He’d been watching her for a long time.

“Don’t cry, Miss Miller.” Taneasha covered Larissa’s hand with her own. With her other hand, Larissa put her fingertips to her cheek, shocked that tears covered the surface.

“I’m so sorry, but you have to see one more thing.”

Again she was looking from what she assumed was Terak’s point of view. This time he was looking at a man.

Red eyes. No, not a man – a vampire.

They were in a wooded area, the light dim but not yet full dark, so it had to either be at sunrise or sunset. The trees contained the full spectrum of color, which meant this hadn’t happened very long ago. The vampire spoke first. “…we need her and her alone. To possess her we would be willing to pay a very high price.”

The vampire had to mean her. He was talking to Terak about her.

“How high?”

No, no. That can’t be. Terak was setting him up, there was some kind of trap being planned at that exact moment. Terak was not asking what this vampire would give in exchange for her.

“When we return the Magic Realm to its former state, Gargoyles will rule over all, second only to the Necromancers.”

Any moment, a band of gargoyles would jump out and trap the vampire. Any moment.

Any moment.

“I need time to consider my options. How do I contact you to reopen negotiations?”

The little ball went white and no other scenes played out.

The heater had kicked on, blowing hot air directly overhead. Outside the door the five-minute warning bell rang, giving a heads-up class would be over soon. A couple doors opened, and a low hum of voices drifted on air currents.

All so normal. How could everything be so normal? Shouldn’t this much pain be heralded by some change: a blizzard, a volcanic explosion? Shouldn’t something happen in the world when her heart shriveled in her chest?

Terak betrayed her.

He had been watching her for months, planning to give her to the vampires since the beginning. Helping her? He probably was keeping her safe so to get better terms for his Clan.

Taneasha wrapped Larissa’s hand in her own. “Miss Miller, I know they’re watching you right now. I can cast a spell to get you out of here without them seeing. Do you want that? I can take you to my Master and he can help.”

“Yes.” She’d use Taneasha’s help to get away from them, then she’d go home. She’d tell Dad everything and let him figure out the next step, because she was done. She was finished being terrorized and bullied and made love to…

A sob escaped her tight throat, and Larissa put her face down into her cupped hands. She dug her fingers into the skin of her face and forced herself to calm down. This was not the place to fall apart.

Taneasha’s hand stroked her hair. “Right after school, meet me at the gym. I’ll have everything ready, and we’ll get you to safety.”

Taneasha dragged her through the back gate behind the gym. Larissa didn’t ask where she got the key when only the gym teacher was supposed to have it. Wondering about that was for later, after she avoided Terak and got to Taneasha’s house.

A car idled at the curb, and Taneasha got in without hesitation, her hand wrapped around Larissa’s wrist in a death lock. Larissa was pulled in, the door was shut behind her, and the car took off, tires squealing as they peeled away from the curb.

As they rode, Larissa’s mind became a jumble. Images of Terak from last night kept being overlapped with the conversations that little ball showed her, and always present were they eyes of that vampire, glowing red as they bartered her life the same way someone would barter for a piece of meat.

The car went over a bump hard enough that Larissa bounced in her seat and her mind came back to the present. She looked out the window, unable to place where they were. “Taneasha, this isn’t the way to your house.”

“I couldn’t take you to my house. Too many questions.” Taneasha looked around as though to assure herself that they weren’t being followed. “Don’t worry, Miss Miller. They’ll take care of the gargoyle.”

Unease trickled through Larissa. “Who is
they
?”

“My Master’s other students. They were told to look out for the gargoyle.”

“You never mentioned anything about that.”

Taneasha looked out the side window, her attention away from Larissa. “I’m getting you to safety, so don’t worry about anything.”

Maybe it was because she was in the
very
unfamiliar position of being out of control around a student, but Larissa’s spine began to tingle, waves of warning electrifying her nerve endings and making their presence known. “Let me out at City Hall, Taneasha. There are people there I know can help me.”

“None like my Master, though.”

“Yes, your master is very kind to offer… his?... services, but I want out.”

“We’re already where you need to be.”

At her words the car stopped and Taneasha started to open the door. Larissa put her hand over Taneasha’s arm to stop the girl from leaving. “Taneasha, where are we?”

“We’re going to meet my Master.”

“I want to go home.”

Taneasha’s face changed, and the bright, studious, shy girl she knew from class was replaced with this sly creature before her. “But Miss Miller, it took so much to bring you here.”

Taneasha jerked her arm away and left the car.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. How stupid could one woman be? Gods, she never thought Taneasha could betray her, but she should have known better. She should have called her brother.

Larissa drew in a deep breath, using the exhale to center her thoughts. She looked around but nothing in here could be used as a weapon.

“Come out, Larissa Miller.”

The voice was male, though not as commanding as it wanted to be. She didn’t want to be in the position of having someone or something reach in and pull her out, so Larissa exited the car.

It was the vampire from the sphere, the one who offered Terak power in exchange for her. Taneasha was at his side, a little puppy who awaited praise.

Without taking his eyes from Larissa, the vampire ran his hand over Taneasha’s long braids. “Excellent, Taneasha. You have done well.”

Taneasha preened under this praise, her eyes slit and her neck arched back so now the puppy was asking for a scratch under its chin.

“Larissa Miller, I am Garof. You have been a very difficult woman to find.”

The driver’s side car door opened, and a young man came out. Probably human, but his size and the gun at his shoulder said disregarding him would be a mistake. She focused her attention on the vampire. “Can’t say I’m sorry about that.”

“No, I don’t suppose you are.”

Breathing helped center her. She had power, meager as it might be at this moment. These
things
needed her alive for some reason. They had not gone to all this trouble and suffered all those losses to kill her now.

The vampire held up a ring. “I need you to hold out your hand, Miss Miller. I need to try something on you.”

“Don’t think you’re coming anywhere near me with that.”

“You can hold out your hand and I shall put this on you in a very simple process, or you can resist and I shall use force to make this happen. Is this truly the time to make your stand?”

When put like that, no, it wasn’t. Larissa held out her hand, fingers spread wide to let him put on the damn ring.

Without touching her he slid it over her forefinger. Only when darkness hit her vision did Larissa realize she had closed her eyes against whatever this ring was supposed to do to her. She opened them, to see a plain silver band which rested on her finger, comfortable and quiet and so innocuous a vampire should not have it in his possession.

But while the ring looked innocuous, the smile on the vampire’s face was anything but. His sick joy radiated out from him, and a shower was nowhere enough to make her feel clean again.

She ripped the ring off her finger and threw it at him. “There. Whatever you needed to know, you know.”

“Yes, I do, Miss Miller. You are perfect for what we need.”

“Shove it, I’m not helping you. I know what you are trying to do, and I will not take part in that.”

The vampire sneered at her. “You think not, a pitiable excuse for a human like you?” He laughed, contempt the only emotion the sound held. “You amuse me. You espouse such grandiose statements, but at the first pressure you’ll break. All your kind do.”

“Go fuck yourself. No matter what you do to me, I’m not helping you.” Brave words, but the more he spoke, the smaller she collapsed inside. Gods, she wasn’t a warrior. How was she going to stay strong?

The vampire smirked at her. “You think we’ll hurt you? You are mistaken. We would not touch you. We need you. This one, though,” and he grabbed Taneasha by the hair, making her cry out as he dragged her beside him. “We do not need her.”

There was no sly creature here. Now all that was before her was a scared girl, a very young woman who had tried to break away from her family in the stupidest way possible, and was now confronted with a price she could in no way pay.

Taneasha held out her hand toward Larissa. “Miss Miller!”

“Get off her!”

The vampire regarded her coldly. “If you do not do as I say, I will skin this girl alive before your eyes. And if that does not make you change your mind, I will capture another of your students and do the same thing tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after. And I will continue until you agree to help.”

Taneasha was screaming in fright, spittle dripping down her mouth. Cold sweat broke out over Larissa’s skin as nausea threatened with every breath she took. “I’ll do whatever you say, please don’t hurt her.”

“That easy?” He threw Taneasha into the arms of a waiting male. “And here I thought you weren’t going to help us. So you’ll sacrifice the entire realm for a few pathetic brats. Or maybe you’ll sacrifice the realm to appease your own conscience, so instead of feeling like a murderer, you can cry and wail about how you were tricked.” The vampire smirked. “Pathetic.”

To the men, he said, “Get ready.”

Wulver strode down the corridor to the meeting room, stopping inside the doorframe as Fallon’s raised voice filtered into the corridor, “Next time I see the Oracle I’m going to take one of those spiky shoes she likes to wear and nail her in the
throat
!”

Fallon and Aislynn were both present. Aislynn noticed him first, giving her head a little shake as well as a small shrug to her shoulders, a
what can you do?
move. For her part, Fallon was standing in the middle of the room, hands on her hips and posture as aggressive and aggrieved as it got outside of the battlefield, that sword of hers looking as if it was practically vibrating on her back. He might need to order her to the sparring rooms tonight. Maybe Rorth would be brave enough to partner her.

Wulver leaned against the doorframe. Might as well get comfy while dealing with the seething swordswoman. “Kyo’s not too happy with the circumstances, either.”

Fallon’s gold eyes were hard behind narrowed eyelids, her mouth a compressed line so tight there was no delineation between lip and jaw. “Then he should have had the balls to deny the Oracle. Larissa Miller was here. We had her safe, we could have figured everything out, and instead we had to play games.”

In her naivety, in her constant fight against the powers surrounding them, this was where Fallon’s weakness lay. While he had a few moments when he envied her fight, times like this weren’t among them. “When don’t we play games? When aren’t we at the whims of this god or that force? You talk like this is a rare occurrence.”

A muscle ticked at where her jawline met her throat, but she didn’t answer. Aislynn jumped in, no doubt to calm the negative energy vibrating in the room. “What are we going to do about Larissa Miller now?”

Wulver shook his head. “We are not to go near her unless it’s a direct order from Kyo.”

That started Fallon up again. She threw up her hands in a violent motion and started pacing the room again, though this time she kept her focus fixed on him. “Fuck, Wulver! She needs to be here! I don’t know how the hell she fits into their plans, but they want her bad. I don’t want to be sitting here while she plays ga-ga eyes with a gargoyle!”

He’d already had enough crap dealing with Kyo this morning. He didn’t feel like going through everything again because Fallon couldn’t accept reality. He pushed back from the doorframe and growled from the back of his throat as any alpha answering a challenge would. “It’s over,” he said, and even to his own ears his voice was deeper with an echo of a wild animal running through it. “And you will not touch her. Am. I. Understood?”

Fallon’s jaw worked as she engaged Wulver in a stare down. Something flickered behind her eyes. It reminded Wulver of a lizard, that inner eyelid which would close and reopen. It was so fast it barely registered in the conscious mind, but it left the Wulver unsettled. Fallon relaxed her shoulders and took a step back, her arms coming to hang beside her body. “Yeah. I understand.”

Wulver breathed deep, relaxing his own muscles which locked during the argument while he struggled to control the alpha roaring in his head to go and pin her into submission, bare her throat and feel his teeth digging into the soft flesh, taste blood on his tongue. He turned his attention to Aislynn to help gain control over the alpha. “We have other problems to deal with now. Merc took the job and the spellbook is under his control.”